


The Fifteenth Entity Is Actually Georgie Barker With A Gun

by pigeonanarchy



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Communication, F/F, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and she listens through all of that off screen in chapter one, basically its Georgie Gets A More Accurate Picture Of What The Fuck Is Going On In The Archives, except its only georgie, its sort of a characters watch the show type deal, she only gets the three seasons that have happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 22,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23889892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonanarchy/pseuds/pigeonanarchy
Summary: georgie finds a bunch of tapes with essentially the entire first three seasons of the podcast while jon’s in a coma what does she do
Relationships: Georgie Barker & Jonathan Sims, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 584
Kudos: 631





	1. oh shit oh fuck im trying to write two things at once watch out guys

**Author's Note:**

> whats up yall i subscribe to the theory that the tape recorders are a jon specifically thing coming from his desire to be remembered and thats the whole explanation for the premise of this fic. georgie gets the tapes through spooky means that will never come up again because im too lazy to think about it.

Georgie was sitting at Jon’s bedside, again, when she noticed the box. His coma made no medical sense, but the doctors were still trying things, so maybe it belonged to one of them? It seemed a bit strange - a cardboard box tucked into the corner of the room. There wasn’t actually very much medical equipment in the room, but from what Georgie had seen, a dusty, somewhat crumpled, water damaged cardboard box didn’t really match how the hospital tended to store their equipment.

She opened it, vaguely curious and suspicious, and both was and wasn’t surprised to see that it was full of tapes. They were labelled - each had a number - but they weren’t sorted at all. The numbers she could see ranged from 8 to 119, and it looked like someone had just been grabbing handfuls of tapes and dumping them in the box. For a second, she was a bit worried that taking such a haphazard approach to getting the tapes into the box would have led to the mystery person missing some, but then she remembered what she was thinking about, shook her head, and moved on.

When she went to head home, one of the nurses stopped her. They didn’t recognize the box either, it turned out, and no one was sure of where it had come from. Actually, they had thought it had been  _ hers, _ confusing her by asking her to take all of her belongings with her. The conversation lasted for a bit, but eventually Georgie acquiesced to taking the mystery box home with her, just to get it out of the nurses’ way so they wouldn’t have to deal with it.

On the tube home, with the box rattling in her lap, Georgie thought about whether or not she should listen to the tapes. They were clearly  _ some _ sort of spooky in origin, and they were definitely tied to Jon. She’d have been irritated with him about this, if not for the fact that he was literally in a coma right now and even if manifesting a battered box of tape recorders was something he was capable of, she doubted he was actually in any position to be making conscious decisions.

He was still in her nightmares, that was true, but since his coma he’d somehow found a way to look  _ even more _ lifeless and empty, and Georgie wasn’t sure that his presence was any sign of reason or thought.

So. That still left the question of whether or not to listen to the tapes. She didn’t really want to get wrapped up in whatever hellish nightmare was going on over in the institute, but she had no way of knowing what the tape recorders were even meant for without listening. Destroying them could work, but they could also have been meant for the people currently trapped in the institute, and she didn’t really want to deny them vital information with everything else they had going on.

Then again, if the tapes were somehow another attack of some kind, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see Melanie go through something similar if she had any say in the matter. The entities fed on fear, and she couldn’t feel fear. If it was a trap, would she potentially be immune? Probably, the thing to do would be to listen to tape number one, and then decide what to do.

-

It turned out, with the tapes spread across the floor of her living room, that the tapes were numbered 1-120, with an additional three labeled a, b, c, and d. She decided to leave the ones with letters for now, and listen to the tape labeled “1”.

-

It was just… a statement. Like the ones Jon had been recording, back when he had been staying with her. Were they just backups or something? She debated just handing the rest of them to the institute - maybe give them to Basira? - but, honestly? Georgie had no idea what was going on in the institute, and she wanted at least some context for what was going on with her girlfriend. She picked one at random with a higher number, thinking maybe the ones later in the series might have more information.

-

Georgie had skipped through the tapes, picking them mostly at random, for a bit before she just gave up and listened to all of them. The numbered ones first, and then the lettered ones. It took a while to get through them all, and every time she thought it wasn’t going to get worse, it did. She realized she had started dreading the end of her work because that was when she’d listen to more tapes, so she took a break, but then she went back to listening. _ Jon. _ She’d gotten the picture that his life wasn’t great, but  _ jesus. _

There had been… a lot, so she’d gotten out some notebooks while she was listening to try and keep track of what was happening, not knowing what would be important. Afterwards, trying to process what she had listened to, she made a timeline of what related to Melanie. She had hoped that that would help focus her back to her original goal - helping her girlfriend - and motivate her to avoid the mess going on in the institute, no matter how bad she felt for the people involved, but making the timeline for Melanie just kept reminding her of what a timeline for  _ Jon _ would look like.

Out of a sort of morbid curiosity, she made that timeline, too. If she’d wanted to, she could not have tailor made a situation to fuck him up worse. If - when? - if he woke up, she decided that at the very least she should apologize for comparing his situation to a drug problem. It had seemed like that at the time, but at the time she’d had a far more incomplete picture of what was going on. Honestly, listening to his boss’ date rapey explanation of how this was all Jon’s choice had made her feel a bit gross even though that was almost  _ completely _ unrelated to her.

-

It was literally the day after she finished that second timeline that Jon woke up.


	2. I Had To Read The MAG 122 Transcript Multiple Times And It Almost Made Me Cry

“-choices. Now you have to- ”

The strange person cut off what they had been saying to Jon’s unconscious body (...dead? No, not dead) as Georgie walked in.

“Can I help you?” Georgie asked, making it as clear as she possibly could with her tone and expression that the only thing she’d be helping them with would be leaving as quickly as possible, whether they wanted to or not, unless they could give a damn good explanation.

This… Antonio, could not, as it turned out, give a good explanation. They were a terrible liar, and Georgie was almost more offended by the fact that they bothered trying to lie like that in the first place than she was concerned about someone touched by Death talking to Jon while he was almost dead.

Even if their lies hadn’t been less convincing than Jon trying to tell her he was ‘fine, absolutely Georgie, really, you don’t need to worry,’ she hadn’t heard of any ‘Antonio’ that she could remember on Jon’s tapes, and, with Jon’s nonexistent work-life balance and her knowledge of him from before that got as bad as it did, she could just about say with certainty that no such friend existed. Something about the situation rang a bell for her, and she made a mental note to check her notes for any mention of them.

As they walked out, she noticed a tape recorder on the table. As much as she knew it probably wasn’t the Death person who had left it, she chased after them anyways to check. Maybe it wasn’t Jon, somehow. Maybe he wasn’t so caught up in this that he couldn’t even escape it unconscious, almost dead.

-

“I mean, is there really anything we can do? The dude left, yeah? So, seems like if Jon dies now, he dies. I- I don’t mean to be rude, I know  _ you _ care about him, but I don’t know that there’s any point bothering.” 

Georgie winced a little at Melanie’s dismissive tone. “Mel, I, could you  _ please? _ I know you don’t care for him, but… If there  _ is _ something we can do…”

“... I- you’re right. I’m just, angry. Ah, I’m busy, but, I think Basira would come? I could see if she’s free?”

“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks, Mel. See you tonight?”

“Oh,  _ absolutely. _ ”

Georgie hung up to wait for Basira. Melanie  _ wanted _ to try, with the anger that so easily ended up guiding her actions and opinions, but, well. She didn’t know  _ what _ to try in the first place. Neither did Georgie. She’d  _ thought _ she did, back when she and Melanie had just gotten together. She’d thought Melanie was being difficult, just rejecting everything she suggested out of hand. Saying she wanted to do better, but refusing to put in the work.

It had been a lot of arguments before Georgie had started to understand where she was wrong. It wasn’t just that Melanie didn’t actually want to do the work, or that Melanie’s feelings of hopelessness were just preventing her from putting in the necessary effort, but rather that Georgie was putting too much stock in the usefulness of her own suggestions. Just because it could be insanely irritating to hear that idea after idea wouldn’t work because of this barrier or that barrier didn’t mean the barriers didn’t exist.

Part of their arguments were driven by the unnecessary anger Melanie was trying to get a handle on, but the other part had been driven by the perfectly reasonable anger of being told to prove that a certain barrier existed again and again instead of being trusted about her own life experiences. It had been hard, for Georgie, seeing problems with no apparent solution. Problems where someone couldn’t just do the right things and stop doing the wrong things and fix it. But, well, they were working together now, even if one or the other would slip up from time to time, and even if neither one actually knew what to do to even  _ start _ making progress.

-

“That’s a good question,” Jon said, revealing that he was, in fact, conscious in the most Jon manner possible.

Basira was worried that he wasn’t Jon and Georgie figured he probably wasn’t okay after the six month coma and they were both wrong, to whatever extent they could feel confident in those conclusions. Jon was still Jon, as best as they could tell, and he was doing fine enough to be moving under his own power - he even managed to sit himself up partway, although his muscles were clearly atrophied.

He was unaware of everything that had happened while he was comatose, which left Georgie privately a bit relieved, but he wasn’t in nearly the bad shape she’d have expected for someone waking up from a six month coma.

He asked if they’d rather he be dead, and Basira just said, “Jon,” sternly, as if he had done something wrong. He looked down a bit, clearly planning to just accept that everyone would rather he have died, before Georgie found her voice again.

“I- No. Well, not really, at least? I  _ don’t _ want you dead, Jon, and I don’t want you brain damaged either, but… I don’t really like the implications of neither of those things happening? I’m glad they didn’t, but I’m worried about what that means for you. I  _ do _ want you to be okay, but. I’m not sure physically okay actually means  _ okay, _ in this situation.”

Jon blinked up at her, but before either one could say anything, Basira interrupted. “Georgie, could you give us a minute? There’s some things we should probably discuss.”

She walked outside, but, remembering Basira’s apparent stance on Jon wanting to know if they’d have preferred him dead, stayed outside the door. Not for too long - her legs were tired and after a minute she crossed the hall to where she couldn’t hear so she could sit down, but long enough to hear one exchange.

Jon’s voice, muffled by the door. “What about you?  _ Disappointed _ to see me alive?”

Basira’s voice, a bit clearer just by virtue of how she spoke. “...We can deal with it later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me writing this chapter: [projects onto melanie] [projects onto melanie] [projects onto melanie]
> 
> projecting onto jon, coming soon to a chapter near you!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note: in the canon episode, basira leaves and jon records the statement, and /then/ basira asks him questions, but im switching that so she asks him questions and then he records the statement and then he asks about georgie for convenience

“...We can deal with it later.”

Deal with  _ what _ later?

Is Jon’s presence just not something she’d accounted for? Basira was the one organizing the Archives, from what she’d heard from Melanie. Was another person an unexpected factor? That… wasn’t great, but it was better than the only other interpretation Georgie could think of, that Jon’s life  _ itself _ was the problem Basira was going to have to ‘deal with’.

Either way, though. The people in the Archives. Melanie was angry, tied up in a terrible situation, to be fair, but the fact remained that she wasn’t in any position to provide support. Martin, who Georgie knew almost entirely through what Jon had said - a lot. He’d said  _ a lot _ \- while staying with her, was gone, serving mister depression as far as Melanie could tell. Elias was in prison, thank fuck, but she didn’t have any hope his replacement would be better. And Basira, apparently, considered Jon’s life a problem.

He’d been given another chance to get his shit together, but expecting him to do that  _ on his own, _ with  _ these _ coworkers, would be downright cruel, considering what she knew of everything else going on in his life. But could she actually stand being his only support? He was a  _ mess. _ Not helping him… would probably be condemning him to whatever inevitable downspiral he’d end up on without anyone to lean on. Helping him, though, could end up being an immense toll on  _ Georgie, _ and they could just end up going down together. The danger with trying to rescue drowning people, and all.

It wasn’t an either/or type of deal, though. She could relax her boundaries without trashing them completely. She’d just have to pay attention to herself, to keep track of how she was doing. Expecting him to quit was out, definitely. There was no way he wasn’t  _ even more _ stuck than he already had been, and if she intended to help him, she couldn’t do what she’d been doing with Melanie, getting irritated when someone didn’t do things they couldn’t do. So, she’d have to try and accept that.

She wasn’t really sure, honestly, why she was so reluctant to engage with Jon’s connections to the institute, when she was dating Melanie, who  _ worked _ there. Then again, no one can afford to spend as much emotional energy on every person they know as they do the people they’re closest to. She could stand to put up with the Magnus Institute for Melanie, but she wasn’t sure if she could for Jon. At least, she wasn’t sure if she could for Jon while also being there for Melanie.

It felt terrible, to acknowledge both that she’s probably the only person in any position to help Jon, and also that she might have to choose not to, for her own sake. Then again, trying to do more than she was capable of wouldn’t end well, either, and she had a right to protect herself. Thinking about it, though, it seemed like she might be able to do both.

There was actually another problem, though. Jon was a target for all these supernatural fear monsters. Even when he didn’t seek them out, he’d been kidnapped, what was it, at least twice? There was Nikola and the circus, Julia and Trevor… was there another one? She kind of felt like there was. God, she couldn’t even remember when, specifically, he had been kidnapped. If she was spending time around him, she’d probably be as much of a target.  _ Melanie _ might end up targeted as well. Her association with Melanie was already a danger, but Jon seemed like he would be a bigger target.

Actually, though? She should probably find out if Jon even  _ wants _ help, first. Can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be, after all, and it would be a bit pointless to spend a bunch of time thinking about the potential dangers of being around Jon Sims - try telling her younger self that this would be a serious problem, she’d have laughed - only to find out he was still intent on beating himself unconscious against a brick wall.

She thought he probably would want the help, though. He hadn’t seemed as averse to help as she’d thought, listening to the tapes.

First things first, then. She needed to talk to Jon.

-

She opened the door to hear Jon saying, “oh, never mind, she’s coming ba- hey, Georgie.”

“Everyone’s staying in the Archives right now for safety, so you  _ do _ have a place to stay even after not paying rent for six months, but before that you’re coming home with me. We need to talk, and going directly from the hospital to an uncomfortable cot in a literal tunnel sounds actually terrible.”

He looked baffled, which wasn’t a great sign. She glanced to Basira, who looked… mostly just tired. Not actively murderous as far as Georgie could tell, which was going to have to be good enough.

“Have the doctors said anything about when you’re getting released?”

“There’s still some tests they want to run, but when they all come back fine they won’t have any more reasons to keep me here and they’ll be willing to let me go, but they’d need to find me a cane and they don’t have any right now, so… it should be a few hours. Ah- ” He looked down and fidgeted with the edge of his blanket.  _ Could _ he control that? It didn’t really seem purposeful. If it  _ was _ something he could control, he’d have to learn how, anyways.

“Couple hours, then? I’ll need to text Mel, but I can wait here with you until then so you don’t need to get a ride while you’re recovering. Actually, I think I have one of your canes still in my apartment, I could go grab that, save us some time.”

The relief on his face broke her heart a little, to be honest.

-

Melanie wasn’t happy to hear that she was having Jon over, but with everything else in their relationship, the two of them at least knew how to compromise. Melanie didn’t want to be around Jon? That was fine, Georgie could make that work. Georgie didn’t want to be part of most of what was happening in the Archives, and Melanie accommodated that despite being stuck working there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good news guys!! ive figured out how to get georgie a gun!! its all coming together!!


	4. Chapter 4

Jon jumped when she dropped the box of tapes onto the table with a thunk, fortunately not spilling his cereal in his surprise. The Admiral grumbled where he was curled on Jon’s lap, but didn’t move.

“Georgie, wha-”

“Are these real, Jon?”

“Ah, the tapes? Yes, they do look like real tape recorders, I suppose- oh. Yes, they are.” The good mood he’d had a second earlier was clearly gone, and he was rubbing absently at the Admiral’s ear in a failing attempt to distract himself. He looked like he was bracing himself for something, and Georgie regretted her harsher tone of voice a little. She was tired from recording late last night, but she should have taken a second before starting the conversation.

“Okay.” He’s doing his best, she reminded herself. Of course he can’t control his spooky knowing things powers, he hasn’t had time to learn. Even if he had practice, there was no guarantee he’d be able to actually  _ stop _ them. “So. Jon. What do you  _ want? _ ”

“I- ” Jon started, looking upset. Georgie realized she hadn’t phrased her question well. “ _ You _ invited  _ me _ to be here!”

“No, I- I phrased that badly. I don’t mean to accuse you, I just. I’m not going to help you self-destruct, if that’s what you end up doing, but. If you want help, I can’t help without knowing what you  _ want. _ ”

Jon blinked back at her, the Admiral batting at his hand as he froze and stopped petting. “...What?”

“Jon. Do you want help? Because as far as I can tell, you’re in  _ way _ over your head. There’s only so much I can do, I’ll admit, but I want to do what I can if you’ll accept the help I can give.”

He fell silent, and stayed silent as he headed out to the Institute for the day.

-

“Hey, Admiral. What do you think, darling? What’s Jon going to do?” Can he be helped? Does he  _ want _ to be helped? Will he even survive the workday?

That last question wasn’t a new one - she worried about Melanie every day. Jon probably had better odds of surviving, if she was honest with herself. But alive… well, where Jon was concerned, alive wasn’t actually worth much in the end. He could be doing pretty badly while still being alive. Every time she thought he’d found the lowest someone could survive being, he’d found a way to prove her wrong.

Once they’d broken up, she’d tried to ignore her worry and fear for him, knowing that she couldn’t handle being the one to help him up anymore. It had taken her… a while to start being able to say she was doing okay when people asked without lying. And here she was, back at it again. Her therapist would be disappointed.

Nope, that wasn’t helpful thinking. Her therapist would be concerned, sure, but never disappointed. Not for reaching out to help, and especially not for trying to find a way to help that would be manageable, protecting herself as best she could. Jon could actually accept help - he’d seemed, on the tapes, like he was actually trying to get himself together. If she reached out a hand, he might actually try to climb.

“Wish I was a cat, sometimes.  _ You _ aren’t worrying about all this,  _ are _ you? No,  _ you’re _ just here to get pets and warmth and food.”

The Admiral swatted her cup of water off the table.

“And to commit crimes, I suppose. Should we court-martial you, when Jon gets back? Put you on trial for your many feline felonies? Bring you to justice?”

He bumped his head against her hand.

“I am _offended!_ _Me,_ take _bribes?_ I mean, you _are_ very cute… no! There must be _justice_ for the water cup!”

He yawned.

“Sir, I am  _ not _ so weak of heart as to- ”

She broke off as the Admiral started purring.

“... I  _ suppose _ I can overlook your crimes this time. But next time!  _ Next _ time you will not be so lucky!”

-

Jon came back to Georgie’s that evening, somehow looking even more depressed. “Georgie… do I even  _ deserve _ to be happy?”

“There’s no such thing as a person who does or does not deserve to be happy. It’s not something you have to pay for or earn. Do you  _ want _ to be happy?”

“I- I think I do, it’s just… there’s so  _ much _ and I just… can you actually help me?” The emotions she saw in his eyes were actually more concerning than the feeling of being watched that came with being looked at by Jon Sims now.

“I can’t guarantee that I can fix everything, or even  _ anything, _ but I am willing to help you carry some of the weight you’re struggling under.” She said decisively, with more certainty than she thought she could feel about Jon’s situation.

He blinked, and then looked away, somehow more distressed. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to- I’m sorry, I can’t  _ stop-  _ ”

That was when Georgie recognized the feeling in her answers like the statement she had given, words flowing smoothly like the tape of Jon’s recorders, static at the back of her brain. She took a deep breath - she’d already decided that being around Jon would probably mean dealing with spooky powers he couldn’t control, and this was so clearly an accident, and a minor one at that.

“It’s fine. Well, not entirely, but I don’t think it’s your fault you can’t control the spooky powers you were led to developing without any warning and were given absolutely no advice for dealing with. So, it’s not fine, but we’re fine. Do you know if you can even ask normal questions at all, anymore?”   


“Oh. Oh, ah, maybe, I’m not sure. I think I can, but I might just not be noticing? I… don’t really know what’s going on, anymore.”

“Well, that last bit I don’t know that I can help you with, but I’ll try and pay attention with the questions. Trying to talk to people without asking any direct questions sounds like a nightmare.”

Jon laughed, slightly. It turned out, his laugh still  _ did _ make her heart feel warm, although part of that was probably from how long it had been since she’d last heard him laugh.

-

“I’ve been thinking,” Georgie said later, “and I think you should skip work on Wednesdays.”

“I- Wh- ” Jon sputtered, clearly trying not to ask her a question, which she appreciated. He sighed. “I would like to know why you think that.”

“Well, Mels comes over on the weekends, and, no offense, but she doesn’t really want to be around you? So if you’re going to be coming over as well, you need to be here on a weekday.” Jon winced, so she continued, “It’s not your fault, Jon. She just needs time away from all the Archives stuff going on.”

“Ah, I wonder… do you think- I think maybe it’d make more sense for the one to be skipping work to be Melanie? She seems like she’d appreciate not showing up more than I would.”

“Oh! That’s actually a good idea, do you know how much time she actually has to be there for?”

“Probably a couple days a week, at most, actually.” Jon winced, and Georgie assumed that it was because he hadn’t known that a couple of seconds ago. In an ironic turn of events from the last time he’d stayed at her house, Georgie realized she might end up needing to encourage him to be  _ more _ spooky just because beating himself up constantly hasn’t gotten him anywhere and some sort of self-acceptance would probably be good for him.

“Actually, do  _ you _ have to be there more often? If you guys all skipped work most days it’d probably help with being less involved.”

“I- ah. I don’t…  _ have _ to, I don’t think, it’s just… I- it feels like a clock ticking in the background, the mess in the Archives does, I mean. It’s not- it  _ should _ be something I can ignore, just tune out, but… it’s just, I can’t tune it out and it’s always just  _ there. _ ”

“Makes sense, I guess. So, you’re going to be here weekends?”

“I don’t want to be a hassle, if that’s too much and you need time on your- ”

Georgie just looked at him until he cut himself off.

“...You wouldn’t offer it if it wasn’t something you were okay with. Yes, okay, I get it. I’ll be here. Do you want me to leave now, or…”

“Go bother the Admiral, I know he’s the one you’re actually here for.”

He smiled at her and walked off to find- no, he probably walked off towards the Admiral. It’d probably be more shocking to find out he  _ didn’t _ know where the Admiral was. As he did so, Georgie heard a click, and checked around herself. She found a tape recorder under the table.

“Hey, Jon?” She called.

“Yeah?”

“Did you bring a tape recorder over?”   


“No, wh- did- please, just guess what I was going to say Georgie, I can’t live like this.”

She snorted. “Found one. Are you going to want it?”

“Oh, sorry, I don’t- they just turn up. You can do whatever with it, I guess!”

Georgie had been going to throw it away, but she paused and dug an empty box out of the mess by her recording area. It was literally just a recording of herself and Jon talking, after all, with nothing overtly spooky about it except the tape recorder itself. Probably wasn’t  _ too _ risky to hold onto, and with how helpful the last box of tapes had been she might as well start a new box for spooky tape recorders that appear for seemingly no reason. She didn’t believe that there was  _ actually _ no reason, and at the very least, helping Jon figure out how his spooky fear powers work would probably be helpful.

-

Jon was about to leave when he paused, one foot out the door, and said, “I think there’s another statement in your box.”

“What?” Georgie asked, having been talking about something entirely different.

“In your box of statements,” he said, moving as if he wanted to walk back in immediately to see but was trying to be polite, “a new tape.”

“...It’s not that late, I guess. Do you want to check it?”

Jon didn’t even bother agreeing - he was past her and back in her flat almost before she’d finished offering. There was, it turned out, a new tape. It was labeled 121. There was already a player there, she noted, unsurprised.

It turned out to be a recording of what was probably the conversation she’d walked in on, with the Antonio man - apparently actually named Oliver Banks - talking to Jon. Later, when they’d listen all the way through, Georgie would get confirmation in hearing her own interruption on the tape, but right at the beginning Jon winced and she paused the tape.

“What is it?”

“No, it’s just- he’s spelling my name wrong.”   


“What?”

“With an h. He’s spelling my name j-o-h-n. I mean, he’s talking, obviously, but if he was writing there would be an h.”

Georgie paused for a second, thinking about that, and then burst out laughing.


	5. Chapter 5

Georgie was on the floor of the lab, as the corpse lady stood there and the other corpses lay across the floor. She could remember how afraid she’d been, but even here that fear couldn’t touch her. Jon was there as well, as he always was, even though he hadn’t been there the first time. It was a bit hard to make out any identifying features other than  _ eyes, _ but the knowledge of his identity was bone-deep anyways.

She’d hoped these dreams might end, now that Jon was trying to better himself, but then again, it’d barely been any time. The sky outside the window was watching too, something she figured probably wouldn’t go away even if Jon didn’t. The dreams didn’t seem all that likely to end, when she thought about it. This was more a shame for people other than her, but it was still a bit of a nuisance.

Georgie just sat there and looked back at him, as she always did, until the dream ended.

-

She woke up to some texts from Jon on her phone.

**admirals dad:** Do you get nightmares

**admirals dad:** About the thing in college

**admirals dad:** I know this is probably weird and rude you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to

**admirals dad:** But if you do is there anything weird about them

**u:** by weird do you mean weird as in you with like so many eyes

**u:** because if so ye

**u:** wait did you not realize that until now???

**admirals dad:** I did not, no

**u:** jonathan sims i canNot believe

**admirals dad:** I will admit that I didn’t particularly want to think about it

**admirals dad:** In hindsight, it does seem rather obvious

**u:** Jon Nathan Simuel

**admirals dad:** George Gina Barker

**u:** hey dont you full name Me

**u:** John Nathan Sam Manuel

**u:** im not the one who was dumb here

**admirals dad:** I apologize

**admirals dad:** Gee Ogre Gina McBaker

**u:** Jonny D’Ville

**admirals dad:** I concede

**admirals dad:** Sorry I have to go

**u:** have fun at eldritch horror work!!!

**admirals dad:** You mean regular capitalism

**u:** fair. have a good day

**admirals dad:** You can’t tell me what to do. Bye

She put her phone down and stretched before heading to the kitchenette to get something to eat. The Admiral, hungry bastard man that he was, noticed she was awake and immediately sprinted to his bowl and started yowling at her.

“Alright, you little bastard. Here’s some food. Don’t say I never do anything for you,” she said, pouring the only food he’d willingly eat into his bowl.

Apparently, though, that wasn’t what he’d wanted when he’d decided to start feigning death by starvation on the floor, because instead of eating any of that he tried to shove his entire face into the box of cereal when Georgie was grabbing herself a bowl.

“Oy! That’s a crime, little man!”

The Admiral wailed as she shoved him off the counter, but Georgie refused to visibly show sympathy for his plight. Even if he was very cute. Her cereal was bad for him, no matter how much he wanted it.

… She did get him some treats, though.

-

Partway through the day, while Georgie was finishing editing another episode, she got another text from Jon, asking if she’d gotten another tape, because he’d recorded another statement. Going through a box of more than 120 tape recorders seemed like a great way to procrastinate, so she went and fished through the box to see if there was one labelled 122.

That didn’t work out great, because it was way too easy to miss a tape, so Georgie emptied the entire box on the floor and started sorting them by numbers. Of course, the Admiral eventually noticed and came over to investigate, and immediately decided that the tape recorders were his new favorite toy. She wondered if they smelled like Jon or something. Either way, he was going to break the tapes, and if the tapes were going to get broken, she wanted to be the one to do it. Although, if Jon wanted to, she’d let him, come to think of it. Georgie took a quick picture of the Admiral half buried under the tapes to send to Jon, and then shooed him out of the room and closed the door.

**u:** i think the admiral wants a job as an assistant

**admirals dad:** I would not hire my son!! That’s nepotism!! Also he is too good for the Institute

**u:** that is true id have to disown you if youd tried to hire him

**u:** also

**u:** he has fewer qualifications that you

**admirals dad:** Do not be rude!! My boy is qualified to do whatever he wants to!!!!

**u:** anyways im still looking havent found 122 yet though

**admirals dad:** Oh, it’s not that important. I could look next time I’m over

**u:** no im hiding from my job

Eventually, she got the tapes all sorted across the floor and checked where she’d put the tape that had appeared while Jon had been over, and there was no tape labeled 122. On a hunch, or maybe out of a desire to procrastinate longer, she spent a fair chunk of time looking through the house for any tapes or tape recorders.

She found one tape that had a twenty-three minute long recording of what she assumed was the Admiral purring, and another tape that the Admiral had found to play with that was completely blank, but no 122. The tape with the recording went with the other one, and the one that was blank went back to the Admiral to play with in hopes that it would keep him out of the stashes of tape recorders she now had in her room. After sending a brief text to Jon, she finally had ran out of ways to procrastinate and had to go back to her work.

Actually, scratch that. She could go for a walk! Fresh air would be healthy, and Georgie wanted to spend less time sitting inside anyways. So convenient, and definitely not a strategy to avoid doing the editing she was supposed to be doing!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> georgie, making a card tower out of spooky tape recorders that jon accidentally summoned into existance: i try to keep the supernatural out of my life  
> the admiral, stealing tape recorders from her: is this my dad


	6. Chapter 6

A few more recorders and tapes had turned up in the handful of days since Jon had asked about her nightmares, and Georgie had since realized that they were all basically indestructible, at least for the Admiral. This was extremely convenient (considerate?) considering how determined the Admiral was to play with them, and eventually she’d just gotten the box she’d been putting them in and left it open for him. Georgie was fully aware that, as far as coping strategies go, denial wasn’t great, but she’d already decided to be in this situation, and if the Admiral leaving tape recorders all over her flat made it harder to tell if a new one had shown up made her feel more comfortable, then there wasn’t really a problem.

No problem, that is, until it was Wednesday morning and Melanie was coming over, and Georgie had to scramble all over her flat to find them all because somehow she’d managed to forget the connection between the tapes and the institute, and damn it, she  _ would _ provide a space Mel could go to get away from that shit.

By the time Melanie made it over - having taken to sleeping in since she couldn’t be fired - Georgie was relatively sure she’d gotten them all back into the box and under her bed, and the Admiral was crying in the corner over losing his favorite toys. She’d apologized as much as she could, and she’d just have to hope he would forgive her when she got them back out after Melanie was gone.

“Heya, Georgie!”

“Hi, Mel, nice to- ” Georgie cut herself off with a fond sigh as Melanie walked directly past her, already cooing. Georgie followed, unable to stop herself from smiling.

“And  _ where’s _ my favorite boy? Is he in here? Oh, he  _ is! _ You’re a little  _ darling, _ did you know that? Aw, Georgie, what’s the Admiral sad about? Has she been being  _ mean _ to you? Has she been  _ cruel? _ ”

“He’s just mad at me because I took his toys away,” she said, reaching past Melanie to scratch behind his ears. “He got hold of a couple tapes that showed up when Jon was over and he’s been refusing to give them up.”

Melanie flinched back slightly, and Georgie saw the anger she’d come to expect at any mention of Jon (or the institute, but honestly, mostly Jon) play across her face. Georgie would’ve been lying to say she hadn’t planned to involve the Admiral in any conversations about Jon as much as possible. She hoped it would help Melanie get a bit of room to think, instead of just snapping immediately.

“He- ” Melanie cut herself off to take a couple slow breaths, and then continued, “You’ve got tapes showing up here, too?”

“A couple, yes, but as near as I can tell they only really record the Admiral. They’re locked up in my room right now, and if any do show up I’ve got a hammer we can try to smash them with.”

Melanie gave the Admiral a quick smile, murmuring, “You’re a  _ famous _ boy,  _ aren’t _ you,” before turning back to Georgie. “But you’re keeping them?”

“As long as they’re just spying on the Admiral, I figure it’s free recordings of him purring. You don’t have to agree to put up with them, though. If they show up and you’re here, I figure we’re getting rid of them as effectively as possible.”

Melanie frowned, but more in thought than anger. “They just record the Admiral?”

“It’s only been a couple days so far, but yeah,” Georgie smiled at her.

“Apparently the Eye has good taste,” Melanie snorted. “Who’dve thought.”

-

“Okay okay okay okay so so,” Melanie managed through her giggles, not even bothering to pause the movie - they were binge watching the entire Twilight saga, it wasn’t really a loss. “Vampires - he’s a vampire, right? Like, I mean, he drains my spirit every time he comes on screen, but in the literal sense. Vampires. Can I vaguely mention work for this? It’s funny, I  _ swear- _ ”

“Tell me about the real life vampires, love.”

“Okay, so - I mean, these vampires aren’t sexy  _ either, _ but they’re  _ someone’s _ definition of sexy - but the real ones are  _ not. _ Like, they have- their mouth is just a  _ tube _ with teeth, they don’t even clean their  _ houses- _ ”

-

“I know what you are,” Georgie said, giggling.

Melanie made a frankly  _ awful _ sucking noise through the straw she had in her mouth.

“A- ha- a vampire!”

Somehow, Melanie managed to outdo her previous terrible straw sound with another, even worse straw sound.

-

“Wait, are  _ werewolves _ real?”

“Yeah, but they’re, like, disappointing in the  _ opposite _ direction. I mean, hairy on the  _ inside? _ What’s the  _ point? _ ”

“Mel, darling, light of my life, I  _ desperately _ need some context for that.”

-

“No, no, you’re right, ‘man but sharp’ is, quite possibly, the  _ least _ interesting werewolf description I’ve ever heard. I mean, terrifying for the man who got chased, certainly, but we live in a world with  _ eldritch fear monsters _ outside our  _ dimension. _ I, for one, think they can do better.”

“Exactly my point! They can make mannequins walk and make those horrid creepy vampires exist but they can’t even let people be  _ furries? _ They’re the  _ real _ cowards here, I think.”

-

“What’s going on with What the Ghost?”

“ _ I _ have a werewolf story that  _ isn’t _ disappointing, actually. So obviously, there’s just  _ so many _ werewolf stories and werewolf sightings and such  _ all over, _ right? So I’ve been doing research, and- ”

-

Waking up in the mornings (well, early afternoons) with Melanie was quite possibly one of the best things in Georgie’s life, and this morning would have automatically been included among her best beginnings to a day if not for the Admiral scratching at her closet and yowling.

“Georgie, what did we  _ do _ to him…?”

“I think he figured out where I put the tapes. Let him cry, he’ll get over it.”

Georgie pouted as Melanie rolled away from her towards the edge of the bed, saying, “hey Admiral. I’m so sorry you’re being treated so  _ terribly _ but you’re going to have to wait a few more hours, okay? Do you want pets? C’mere, let me hold you.”

“Melanie, he’s just a little bastard man, don’t worry about him.”

  
Melanie gasped, twisting to look at Georgie with mock horror in her eyes. “ _ Georgie, _ don’t be  _ rude! _ He is a very good little boy,  _ aren’t _ you, you’re just a little  _ darling _ and it’s not your fault that any of this is happening to you. I’m so  _ sorry _ you have to be caught up in all this, I  _ wish _ everything could be simple and you could just be happy all the time you wonderful little ray of sunshine- ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Georgies type is impulsive short people who go ‘hi georgie’ and then immediately push past her to go see the admiral when they come over. She realized a bit into getting to know melanie that she doesnt even think about dating people who never ignore her for her cat (to be clear the admiral is also jons cat but thats not relevant for this bit) but shes still not sure what to make of that realization


	7. Chapter 7

“I’ve been thinking,” Melanie began, over breakfast (or was it lunch?). “About Jon.”

  
  


“Makes sense.” Georgie responded.

  
  


“Okay.” Melanie took a slow breath, exhaling through her teeth. “I was mad, when you first mentioned him, and even more when you said about the tapes. It felt like… betrayal, I guess? I cannot _stand_ him, and you let him into, well, the only place I can really call home, right now.”

  
  


Georgie waited for a second to see if Melanie would continue, and then tilted her head, asking wordlessly if Melanie wanted her to respond or if she was still talking and just needed a bit to put together her next words. Melanie shook her head to say that Georgie should stay silent so she could think, because she wasn’t done with what she wanted to say.

  
  


“I think it was a good thing that we got distracted by the Admiral when we did – I don’t think I was going to make a very good decision following that. I… well, I was upset. I’m not so upset now, with a bit of distance from the moment. But, I stand by that. I don’t really- this is the only place I _have._ He has the _Archives,_ I just want somewhere _without_ all that. I _don’t want him here,_ Georgie.” Melanie took another breath and visibly relaxed her shoulders before looking to Georgie and gesturing for her to speak.

  
  


“I just want to point out – not as a condemnation, or anything to that effect – but I’d like to point out that this _is_ my flat.” Georgie paused, trying to sort out her thoughts. “I see how inviting him here, and _especially_ his spooky tapes, would be a betrayal. On the other hand, I don’t think the Archives _are_ his place, all things considered. They’re probably about as much his place as they are yours, except that he has even fewer means by which to escape because they basically follow him everywhere. Neither of you really have anywhere other than my flat, and I want to be able to help both of you.”

  
  


Melanie frowned at that, but Georgie kept talking.

  
  


“I don’t think I’m willing to cut Jon out of my life for you, at least not entirely. I can try to have the two of us meet up more outside my flat – at a park, or some such – but, then again, I do intend to invite him over at least occasionally. I think he needs a place to call home at least as much as you do, and I’m not willing to deny him that. I can avoid you and Jon ever crossing paths, and do my best to keep him out of your life, but if any interaction between the two of us is intolerable for you, then I’m sorry. I hope we can find a compromise, though. I do love you.”

  
  


“I _hate_ him,” Melanie cut herself off, taking a couple more breaths. “It’s not- I- you’re right. I don’t want to interact with him, but I- well, I _can’t_ see why you do, but you do. That’s fair. I’m not in charge of who you spend time with. I don’t want to see him, though. Or hear about him. Or acknowledge his existence. Is that- is that possible?”

  
  


“I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I’ll certainly do everything I can towards that goal. I can’t guarantee that I’ll always succeed completely, but I’ll do my best. If you ask me something, and the answer is Jon – like why the Admiral was upset, yesterday – would you rather I lie or just not answer?”

  
  


“I think… I think I’d rather you tell as much of the truth as you can. Lies… hm. I’d rather avoid them. I have enough problems. If that doesn’t work, though, we can talk about it again later?”  
  
“Of course. Now!” Georgie clapped, letting a smile grow on her face. “I seem to recall _someone_ offering to watch through a series of movies with me, and, if my memory is correct, we have not reached the end yet. If only I could recall who that was. I know I love them, certainly, but that could be so many- ”

  
  


“I changed my mind. We’re breaking up.”

  
  


They did not break up.

  
  


-

  
  


G eorgie  got a text  Jon after Melanie had left , which essentially added up to a shrug about the tapes  not appearing and an apology – he didn’t think he could do anything to stop the nightmares, and he couldn’t do anything in them no matter how hard he tried.

  
  


That wasn’t great, she could admit to herself. It was clear that Jon was beating himself up over this way more than was reasonable, though, so instead of telling him that she just told him that it was obvious that he was doing his best, and that worrying so much was probably bad for his health, even if he  _did_ serve an eldritch fear monster.

  
  


Tape recorders appearing out of nowhere, and haunting people’s dreams. So far, there were two sort of main presentations of whatever  powers Jon had now. She knew he could compel people to talk, as well, and potentially know things with spooky powers (??), but until Jon mentioned those as problems she decided not to worry about them.

  
  


Of those two, the dreams seemed less likely to be controllable than the tape recorders. Jon had said he was aware, but not in any way that would let him act – he couldn’t even tell if the reason he wasn’t doing anything was because he physically couldn’t or because he couldn’t even consider action an option in that state. Georgie figured she could try talking to him, see if that reminded him to be a person, but she figured she shouldn’t hold out hope.

  
  


The tape recorders, though, she had a theory about. Mel had mentioned her anger over tapes showing up in the Archives – spying on them, she’d said – and Georgie had gotten a general idea of _when_ they would show up. For obvious reasons, Melanie hadn’t been inclined to talk much about it, and Georgie hadn’t been about to pressure her, but the specific incidents she’d mentioned had both been times when she and Basira had been hanging out and chatting – generally having the closest thing to a nice time they could have. Georgie was willing to bet the other times had been similar.

  
  


She had skimmed through her collection of spooky tapes that appeared out of nowhere – not the labeled statement ones, but the other, newer ones – and found mostly recordings of the Admiral, some recordings of her talking to herself – especially making jokes – and clips of her recording What the Ghost – again, especially jokes and parts she figured Jon would enjoy. The connection seemed to be things Jon would want to hear – maybe things he would want a record of, or things he would’ve wanted to be present for. The exact specifics weren’t clear, but at least there _was_ an underlying pattern.

  
  


All things considered, she figured the recordings of Melanie weren’t as malicious as they appeared and felt. Jon, as near as she could tell, just genuinely cared about Mel and Basira being happy. That was nice, but he was still hurting them. Probably, though, what could work would be something to help keep his thoughts off of Melanie and Basira – something else for him to focus on. She’d bet Martin had a bunch of tapes appearing too, actually. Either way, knowing him, that was definitely going to be a struggle, but with how he’d been lately, Georgie felt like she could actually have faith that he’d do his best.

  
  


She sent Jon a quick text to remind him of when he’d agreed to come over, made a couple notes of things she thought might help, and then tried to put the Institute out of her mind for long enough to get her work done. Maybe she could do an episode on the Institute, actually. Realistically, anything she did would probably have to be fairly far off from the truth, but it could be fun. The inaccuracies might irritate their spooky boss or something, which would be the absolute least he deserved after all this. She made a note of that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record the admiral sees absolutely no difference between jon and the tape recorders. its like how people have heads and also feet? jon also has tape recorders. jon is not aware of this but the admiral is because the admiral is very smart and if the admiral could talk to people the plot of tma would have been solved when jon showed up at georgies house in season two if not sooner. i apologize for the lack of admiral in this chapter


	8. Chapter 8

“Do you think we’re clear enough that this is a joke?” Georgie asked, skimming through the script she and Jon were drafting.

“I think so? I’ve never been the best judge of this sort of thing, though. It’s probably fine, either way.”

“I _know_ that, I just don’t want you having to deal with even _more_ people upset with you, this time because they didn’t get that you were doing the whole skeptic thing as a _gag._ ”

“Oh. Ah, if- if _we_ both laugh about it, and such, would that- do you- ugh.” He put his face in his hands. “Please just figure out what the rest of that sentence was supposed to be on your own.”

Georgie snickered. “I think you’re right, we can probably telegraph pretty clearly that this is meant to be taken as a joke.”

“I mean, I know people can have a hard time telling I’m joking – even when they don’t have something like Melanie’s bullet influencing them, I have a hard time making it clear that I’m not actually serious, and- ”

He kept talking, presumably worrying about whether his presence on an episode of What the Ghost would even be a good idea, but Georgie stopped listening. “Wait wait wait, go back. Melanie’s _bullet?_ ”

“Wha- oh, yeah, in her leg? From- _oh._ ”

From Jon’s deer in the headlights look when he met her eyes, he was just as shocked as she was, despite his matter-of-fact tone of voice when he first mentioned it.

Jon’s eyes seem to focus on something Georgie can’t see as he continues. “The, the bullet. She got shot on her trip to India, and it didn’t show up on any of the doctors’ scans but it’s still in her leg, pumping violence and anger into her bloodstream, just above the tibia. It’s been, it’s been getting worse – like an infection. When she’d been trying to kill Elias, that channeled the anger, but since he got imprisoned it’s just been building up, and she’s- ” He locked eyes with Georgie. “What do- I don’t know what to _do._ ”

Georgie took a breath. “So, the Slaughter is influencing Melanie?”

“I- yes.”

“Okay. I think the first step would be for me to talk to her. She probably wouldn’t take well to you talking to her about this, all things considered.”

Jon hesitated, clearly looking for something to do other than just waiting and finding nothing, then nodded and pulled the script they had been working on closer to him. “So, ah, I had a thought for the episode?”

-

Georgie pet the Admiral idly while she stared blankly at her phone and thought. If she wanted the conversation she needed to have with Melanie to go even _remotely_ well, she would need to be careful. Even then, Melanie would be upset – even without the magic rage bullet she apparently had, Georgie figured she would still be upset by this turn of events. They’d have to talk about Jon, who she hated, and specifically, they’d have to talk about Jon using his spooky powers to know things about her that she didn’t choose for him to know. Sure, it was an accident on his part, but that didn’t really make it less of a breach of privacy.

Probably, the most reasonable thing to do would be to have the conversation about Jon knowing something about Melanie first, and the conversation about that he found out second. It might actually be good to plan on splitting those conversations across two days, too, to give Melanie room to think past her immediate reaction, because that reaction would absolutely be anger and a general rejection of anything to do with Jon, and Georgie was hoping for some nuance. They wouldn’t be able to reach a decision on the bullet if Melanie was automatically shutting down any attempt at conversation because that conversation included acknowledging Jon’s existence.

Georgie would be lying if she said she wasn’t heavily in favor of finding some way to remove the bullet, but honestly what she wanted was improvement. If just being aware of it helped Melanie cope and get herself more under control, and Melanie _didn’t_ want to lose the bullet, well, they’d see. If it kept making Melanie worse, Georgie wouldn’t be able to deal with it, but Jon was far further along the whole losing humanity path and he was still pretty alright, so Georgie would give Melanie the benefit of the doubt if that was what she wanted.

This was definitely not the kind of conversation to spring on Melanie without warning next time she came over. She grabbed her phone, intending to send Melanie a quick text warning her that they had a rather heavy conversation to have next time they saw each other, before pausing. That was the sort of thing that could cause someone a lot of unnecessary worry, Georgie remembered. Knowing something bad was coming but not knowing what or how to prepare for it could scare people. Jon was like that a lot.

Then again, not warning Melanie would be _worse,_ so she’d just have to do her best to make it not scary, somehow. Definitely she could go into more detail than she’d originally planned, so Melanie would know what to prepare for. Melanie generally came to her house to get away from the Institute and all of its bullshit, so the fact that they’d be talking about something to do with Jon was probably something Georgie should include. Was Jon knowing something about Melanie something she should include as well? She didn’t want Melanie to find out about her spooky bullet over text – that just seemed insensitive – but would knowing that Jon knew _something_ about her that she didn’t know be frightening? Or would it be worth it, to go into the conversation braced to talk about a major privacy violation. Georgie opted to keep it simple, and let Melanie ask for what clarification she wanted.

 **u:** hey <3

 **babe <3:** <3 <3

 **u:** i hate to be a downer but

 **u:** we actually need to talk

 **u:** its sort of to do with jon again

 **u:** but its mostly not

 **u:** could you come over tomorrow

 **babe <3:** thats not ominous at all

 **babe <3:** just to check

 **babe <3:** are you breaking up with me

 **u:** no!! i love you so much its not that

 **u:** id just rather not talk about it over text

 **babe <3:** ok ok gotchu

 **babe <3:** see you tomorrow!! <3 <3 <3

 **u:** <3 <3 <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jon, guest starring on what the ghost: [puts on an exaggerated version of his own accent and tries to argue through his own laughter that because someone implied that they had been in a situation where they could have been in the general vicinity of weed at least once in their life, their word can’t be trusted and clearly the entire thing was just a hallucination]  
> a what the ghost listener who went to a couple of mechs shows when they were still performing: this guy sounds familiar… hmm… wonder where I recognize him from…


	9. Chapter 9

“Okay,” Georgie began. “I need you to listen very carefully.”

The Admiral whined and tried to wiggle out of her arms in response.

“This is _important,_ Admiral! I need your help!”

The Admiral continued to wiggle.

“Mel’s going to be here in a bit over an hour and we don’t have a _plan!_ ”

The Admiral refused to stop wiggling. He was still very sad about the tapes and tape recorders getting locked in the closet again, presumably.

“Come on, work with me here. If I just pick you up and put you on Mel when she gets here, she’ll just get mad at me for trying to make her easier to deal with. I need you to take some initiative, climb on her lap and sit on her yourself! Do you hear me? I’m _counting_ on you!”

He slumped over her arms, clearly giving up on escape and deciding to try and guilt trip her by playing dead, or at least playing very very sad.

“You can have your toys back _after_ you help me talk to Mel, okay? Do you hear me?”

He perked up immediately, and for a second Georgie thought he’d actually understood her, before she heard the tape recorder whirring in the background. She didn’t even have to look for it – the second she put the Admiral down to go grab it, he shot off towards it, dragged it out from under the couch cushion, and settled down on it as if it were the most comfortable place for him to lie. It took a bit of effort to grab it out from under him, but she ignored his crying and put the new tape recorder in the closet with the others.

Unfortunately, another one appeared relatively soon after – again, heralded by the Admiral’s sudden good mood. While she was trying to get that one away from him, she remembered her theory about the tapes – that they were extensions of Jon, recording things that were important to him. Of course he would want to know what happened in her conversation with Melanie. He was probably worried for both of them, and just generally curious to know what would happen.

The problem with this, of course, would be that she needed to get rid of all the tape recorders before Melanie arrived, and – if she was right – if he kept worrying about them, new ones would keep appearing to make her life difficult. She called Jon, and wasn’t surprised when he picked up almost immediately.

“Georgie? Is everyth- ” the call dissolved in static for a second. Presumably because he’d asked a question. At least his compulsion didn’t work over the phone.

“Yeah, no, everything’s fine. Mel isn’t even here yet, Jon.”

“Oh! Then, wh- sorry, question. Ah, if you could tell me why you called?”

“No worries about the question – when you tried to ask me how things are the call just got really staticky. I don’t think you can make me answer your questions over the phone.”

“That’s… good?”

“I figure so. Anyways, is there literally anything you could worry about other than me and Mel?”

“Wh- I don’t understand.”

“I think your worry is manifesting tape recorders in my house. I keep locking them in the closet and new ones keep appearing. Honestly, they’ll just make things worse. I figured if you had something else to worry about, it’d be easier for you to not think about Mel and I?”

“Oh. I- ”

“Hang on a sec, there’s three more now.”

“Sorry. I don’t- I don’t really know how to stop? I mean, hypothetically, I’d stop thinking about this, but I’m not actually sure if I can?”

“Got ‘em. Hmm… what if you go to an animal shelter and play with the cats? Would that work?”

“Well- ”

“Your job isn’t even a _job_ at this point. Skip work and go pet cats, you’ll achieve more that way.”

“…Okay. How do- Why- You think I’m manifesting tapes in your house, and I’d appreciate if you could tell me why.”

“Sure, yeah, but after? You have to go pet cats and calm down, and I have to go do a last check to make sure I didn’t miss any tape recorders and then talk to Melanie. It’s not anything bad, I swear, or I’d have mentioned it earlier.”

“Alright. Goodbye, then, I guess.”

“Bye Jon! See you soon!”

-

Georgie had convinced the Admiral to stop crying in front of the closet when Mel turned up, but he was clearly only willing to put up with so much, because his ears went flat against his head and his eyes went wide in fear a solid five seconds before she heard Melanie walking up to her door. When Mel opened the door, he jumped to the floor and hid under the couch.

“Hey, Mel.” Georgie called as Melanie stepped through the door.

“Hey Georgie. What did Jon do this time?” Melanie asked, her tone too flat to be joking. Georgie opted not to derail the conversation in an attempt to clarify that she didn’t think Jon was to blame.

“He found something out accidentally, about you.” Mel grit her teeth, but Georgie continued before she could respond to that. “You mentioned to me earlier you got shot while you were in India?”

“Yeah. He needed his stupid spooky powers to figure that out?” She sneered.

“No, it’s about the bullet.”

Melanie blinked, her surprise temporarily shaking her out of her anger. “The bullet?”

“It’s part of the Slaughter. You might be becoming an avatar.”

Melanie didn’t move, and just took a deep breath. Georgie thought about what she knew about the entities from Mel and Jon. They fed on fear. She didn’t feel fear. Besides the obvious reasons why Jon shouldn’t be the one talking to Melanie, it seemed reasonable to her that Mel’s anger would be more controllable around Georgie – someone who wouldn’t give her any fear regardless what happened. On one hand, Mel was probably a danger, and this was probably a situation where, if she could, she would feel fear. On the other, she was probably safer than most, both by virtue of her and Mel’s relationship, and by virtue of her lack of fear. She wasn’t always as good at recognizing danger as she could be, but this situation seemed safe enough, even if Melanie reacted badly. No need to suggest that they take a breather and interrupt Melanie’s thoughts, at least not yet.

“It’s probably a bad sign,” Melanie began slowly. “With regards to whether or not I’m becoming a spooky fear monster, that one of my first thoughts was to be gratified that I could tell that you were weighing how much of a threat I was, and that I was disappointed you couldn’t actually be afraid of me.”

“Yes, it probably is,” Georgie agreed calmly.

“Okay. Does- ” Melanie uncurled her hands from the fists they had turned into during the conversation, and very deliberately relaxed her shoulders. “Ugh. Jon. He said…?”

“He didn’t really get any farther than the fact that the bullet is still in your leg, it’s undetectable to doctors, and it’s at least partly to blame for your trouble controlling your anger and your inclination towards violence.”

“So, the monster boy thinks I’m becoming a _monster_ like him, that right?”

“Mel.”

Melanie twitched as if she intended to get up, then shook her head and took several deep breaths. “Where’s the boy?”

“He was hiding under the couch, last I saw of him.”

“Smart boy,” Melanie said, a small smile on her face for a second.

Georgie shook her head. “I don’t know _what_ you guys see in him.”

“Us who?”

“You and, well, Jon. You’re both so convinced he is a good, darling boy but he isn’t! He is a small criminal hellbent on causing mischief!”

Melanie looked too baffled to actually make anything of that information for a second, before saying, “Okay. Options?”

“Options regarding the Admiral or options regarding the bullet?”

Melanie snorted, faintly. “The bullet. I don’t suppose Jon mentioned anything?”

“No,” Georgie said, frowning in thought. “We’d probably need to talk to Jon for more information. What are you thinking about?”

“What, you want to know if I want to keep it?” Mel asked, her tone still not light enough for joking.

“Yes.”

“What, really? I’d have thought you’d expect me to get it out as soon as possible.”

Georgie bit her lip. “I’ve seen how much Jon is struggling, so I’d prefer you get it out, yes. He’s in the situation he’s in mainly because he had no information about where he was headed until it was too late. I’d like you, because you know better, to not do that? But, he is managing, sort of. If you’d rather try to cope with the downsides of being an avatar, I’m not going to stop you. I _am_ going to expect you to work on keeping your shit together, especially if your anger gets worse, but I don’t think that’s unfair?”

Mel looked to the side, as if there was some sort of script off to the side to remind her of what to say next. There wasn’t, of course, and the coffee table held no answers for her. Georgie waited patiently for her to figure out what she was going to say.

Eventually, Melanie spoke up. “I don’t hate it. The anger. I don’t even dislike it, not really. It’s… inconvenient, when I’m around you, but. It’s… _Anger_ is how I’ve gotten through _life._ It, it motivates me, makes me _push_ in ways I might not otherwise. It makes me do _better_ when someone overlooks me, it makes me feel _strong._ I… I feel proud, of how angry I am, sometimes. Like, hey, look at me! All these fuckers tried to stop me and beat me down and make me feel like nothing, and I’m still _here,_ still _going._ I didn’t quit, I just got _pissed,_ and I kept going! And all the people who said I couldn’t, they can get _fucked!_ Does that… does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does. I feel like that, sometimes. I have one – no, two – two questions, though. Is this anger, from the bullet, from the Slaughter, is it that sort of constructive anger? Does it _help?_ And, also. Will you not be able to feel like that with the bullet out? Because, it seems to me, if the benefit of the bullet is something you can have without it, removing it would be the reasonable option, at least, as far as I can tell.”

“I think… I don’t think I can decide, not so quickly.”

“Yeah, that’s probably not a good decision to make quickly.” Georgie felt a brush against her leg as the Admiral peeked out from under the couch.

“Oh! Hey there little buddy! Has Georgie been bullying you?” Mel cooed, getting off her chair to sit on the ground with him. “I’m here to protect you, now. I’ll keep her from being mean to you. Can I stay over?” She looked up to Georgie. “I’ll think about it overnight, we’ll see if I’ve got a decision tomorrow?”

“Jon’s coming over tomorrow, but I can just ask him to come over later in the day,” Georgie offered.

Melanie paused to think, scratching the Admiral behind his ears. “Yeah, that should be fine.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dialogue interspersed with occasional verbs because I got bored of writing dialogue

Melanie is passed out on the couch when Georgie wakes up. She hadn’t gone to bed with Georgie – the pacing would’ve woken Georgie up – and apparently she hadn’t gone to bed later either. Georgie adjusted the position she was sleeping in, sliding a pillow under her head and neck and rearranging some of her limbs so she wouldn’t wake up in such an uncomfortable position, and grabbed a blanket to put over her.

The Admiral wound around Georgie’s feet while she was trying to make scrambled eggs for breakfast in a clear attempt to try and murder her, but she triumphed and did not fall face first onto the stove. He did not make any noise, though, because even if he didn’t respect Georgie’s life, he did respect Melanie’s sleep. At least there was that.

Unfortunately, Mel woke up with a groan at the sound of Georgie trying to quietly pour the Admiral’s food into his bowl.

“Mmg. Georgie?” Melanie mumbled.

“Breakfast is about ready, I’m just waiting on the toast at this point.”

“Coffee.”

“On the table.”

“Maybe this is going to be what I go all Slaughter avatar over,” Melanie complained, rolling off the couch. “Having to get up and walk just to get my coffee. Did you think about that, Georgie?”

“Slaughter avatars don’t get coffee until we’ve had a serious conversation about our relationship and boundaries, so you might want to put that on hold,” Georgie responded, privately glad that Mel was feeling alright enough to joke about it.

“Cruel,” Mel mumbled, bending down to pet the Admiral groggily. “She is a cruel woman, you know? Of course you do, you live with her you brave, courageous boy.”

The Admiral did not try to trip _her,_ the traitor.

-

“Did you manage a decision last night? It’s alright if you didn’t, it’s a lot to think about,” Georgie said once they were done cleaning up from breakfast.

Melanie bit her lip. “I… might’ve?” 

She paused to think. “I was thinking about what you said, with constructive anger and anger that’s, well, not that. It’s, hm… well, this anger, the anger I think is from the bullet at least in _part,_ it isn’t _not_ constructive? But, you asked, you asked if I need it, the Slaughter bullet, to have this, this motivation, this drive.

And, well, I was thinking, and, I don’t think so? Because, I did so much _before_ I got shot, right? I mean, some of it wasn’t great, some of it was actually pretty terrible and I wish I could go back and change it, but I did some stuff I’m damn well proud of today. And the stuff I messed up, I don’t think that it was all because, because I wasn’t _angry_ enough, at least not for the most part. It sort of struck me, when you asked if I needed it, honestly.

Because, put it like that, it sounds kind of ridiculous actually. Like I’m saying I can’t accomplish things without an outside source interfering in my mood and worldview and life. Like I need something else to _remind_ me to be angry about injustices and slights and all. Like I’m not perfectly capable of standing up for myself. Because I _can!_ That’s what I’ve always been _proud_ of myself for! So yeah, actually. If I’ve got a spooky rage bullet in my leg, I want it out.”

“Alright,” Georgie said, nodding. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Next thing up, we ought to talk about Jon before we talk to him, beca- oh no.”

“Oh no what?”

“The Admiral is _suspiciously_ happy for someone whose toys are all locked in my closet.” Georgie lunged at him. “What do you have? Give me that!”

“Let him have fun!” Melanie called.

Georgie could tell when Melanie saw the tape recorder the Admiral had because he immediately panicked, picked up the tape recorder in his mouth, and darted off to another room with it. She looked over her shoulder to see Melanie taking several deep breaths with her eyes closed.

“I’m… going to take a quick walk. Let’s talk after that,” Melanie said.

-

Mel looked better when she got back, which was convenient because Georgie still hadn’t managed to get the tape recorder from the Admiral. He was getting better at keeping those away from her.

“He’s a talented boy,” Melanie offered, watching Georgie try to coax the Admiral out from behind the file cabinet.

“He’s a nightmare boy,” Georgie responded, giving up and turning away from the Admiral. “I don’t think I can get that tape recorder into the quarantine closet, Mel.”

She heard Melanie exhale slowly. “Can’t you get Jon to get rid of it?”

“I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about before we talk to him, actually. I figured some might show up while we were talking to him.”

“Mmh. Let’s talk outside, then.”

The Admiral emerged from behind the file cabinet happily to play with his new toy when he saw them open the door to leave.

-

They ended up sitting on a bench in the park. There was nothing about the park that was in any way immune to magic spooky tape recorders appearing out of nowhere, but there was no Admiral to stop them from throwing any that did turn up into a trash can and moving to a different bench. Georgie also texted Jon and told him to go find something to do so he’d stop worrying because she was pretty sure his worry was manifesting tape recorders, but considering the way he was – stressed and afraid – she didn’t have very high hopes for that working.

“Honestly, with how frequently the tape recorders showed up to record the Admiral, it wasn’t very hard to guess that they were in some way connected to Jon specifically instead of just the spooky fear god,” Georgie offered, hoping that the fact that Jon was accidentally using his spooky spying powers to focus on the Admiral would sort of offset the fact that Jon had no control over his spooky spying powers for Melanie.

“That’s what _I’d_ do,” Melanie said, smiling, She paused, and frowned. “So, what? He’s worried I’m going to turn into some sort of rage monster? Wants to know what _happens?_ ”

Georgie looked at her until she relaxed slightly. “I think he’s worried about us.”

Melanie scoffed.

“No, I’m serious. I think he genuinely cares about how you’re doing. I mean he’s also just got a lot of anxiety in general, and probably part of it was his worry that I was going to get stabbed or something, but I think he wants _you_ to be okay, too.”

“He’s terrible at showing it, if you’re right.” Melanie still looked skeptical.

“Oh, absolutely. You’ve met him – would _you_ call him socially competent?”

“Mm. Fair enough. So, conversation we need to have before talking to Jon…?”

“Right, yeah.” Georgie paused to think. “So, obviously, tape recorders manifesting is the problem. I will be shocked if there aren’t several. I was going to offer, if you don’t want to deal with that, to be a go-between, so you don’t have to actually talk to him yourself? It would make conversation a bit slower, obviously, but it could work.”

“I think… I think I’d like to try, just talking? No passing messages. If it’s too much I can leave and we can communicate via Georgiephone, but that sounds _so_ slow and I’d like to avoid it if I can.”

“Second thing I’ve been thinking about, is that he can’t ask questions over the phone. If he slips up, the call just gets really staticky for a second and nothing else spooky happens. I thought maybe we could talk to him over the phone instead of in person? It might be easier on you if he’s not nearby, _and_ he won’t be able to pull anything spooky accidentally or not.”

“That sounds good, actually. Could we go back to your flat for the actual phone call? I don’t want to be out in public in case I get really upset or something.”

“Of course. I’ll tell Jon what the plan is and then we can all talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why doesnt the bullet fall out when melanie decides she doesnt want it, you ask?  
> its because i dont feel like it  
> besides melanie doesnt have spooky knowing things powers and even if she did spooky knowing things powers are notoriously unreliable so hypothetically even if shed really wanted it out she still would have needed surgery  
> but this is mostly just because i think the whole amateur surgery bit was actually really funny  
> anyways  
> melanie: _fuck_ the magic rage bullet i can be angry _on my own!!_


	11. I Can't Believe It's All Dialogue

Georgie opened the window – it gave a lovely view of the alley and the dirty brick wall of the building next door, but more importantly, when tape recorders showed up, Melanie would have the option to throw them out the window so she wouldn’t damage anything in Georgie’s flat.

She heard Melanie snort behind her, and turned to see that there was already one on the table. The Admiral leapt up onto the table and promptly fell asleep on it. Melanie nodded to say she was okay and ready, and Georgie called Jon.

“Hey, Jon.”

“Howdy, jackass!” Melanie called, speaking up as if Georgie didn’t have her phone on speaker.

“Ah, hello. I- what did you- hm. Georgie didn’t actually mention what you guys were planning on, when she texted me.”

“What, you don’t know?” Melanie asked, the edge to her voice not nearly as bad as Georgie knew it could get when talking about Jon.

“No, I d- ” Georgie heard static over the line for a second. “Oh. Well, ah- ”

“You didn’t, but now you do?” Georgie offered.

“I- yes. Sorry?”

“Can you maybe _don’t?_ ”

“Mel, he’s trying,” Georgie said.

Melanie took a deep breath and shook herself. “Try harder,” she muttered, but seemed a bit less irritated.

“I apologize. I’m not… very good, at any of this. It’s not- I don’t mean that as an excuse, it’s still kinda… kinda shit if I’m honest, but… Well, I’m sorry.”

“Georgie, his accent is too stuffy I can’t tell if he’s being genuine.”

“He is, surprisingly enough.”

“You _too?_ ” Jon asked, mournfully.

“Me too what?” Melanie responded.

“Georgie thought I was faking my accent when we met.”

“You _aren’t?!_ ”

“No, this is _literally_ just my voice.”

“Georgie, tell me he’s lying about this.”

Georgie fought down her giggles to say, “He really isn’t.”

Melanie gasped dramatically, startling the Admiral who shifted but decided to remain where he was. “ _No._ ”

“Georgie, your girlfriend is bullying me.”

“I _refuse_ to believe this,” Mel continued.

“He’s telling the truth, Mel,” Georgie said, outright laughing.

Jon sighed over the line.

“Are you guys _serious?_ ” Melanie asked.

“Yup!”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit,” Melanie breathed. “You were right, by the way. He’s way more tolerable when I can’t see him.”

“…Thanks? Can we- ah, we were talking about the Slaughter bullet. Before this.”

“I almost forgot about that,” Mel said.

“Do you know how to get it out?” Georgie asked.

Jon paused. “I just want to preface this by saying that, historically, I don’t tend to have very good ideas.”

“Encouraging,” Melanie said in as serious a tone as she could manage – her mood was still lighter from the earlier conversation.

“It’s just, the reason it’s even still there is because the surgeon couldn’t see it.”

“Jon.”

“Georgie, this is an excellent time for you to have literally any better idea.”

“What?” Mel asked.

“That’s terrible, Jon.”

“Which is _why_ I would appreciate you having a better idea!” He sounded extremely stressed. Probably, he’d been trying to think of something better since he’d realized what the problem even was.

Georgie decided to take pity on him and be the one to actually say the idea. “Jon, do you even know how to do surgery?”

Melanie stared at her, speechless. There were a few seconds of static over the line, followed by Jon saying, “…Yes.”

“Okay, so, ignoring _all_ of the problems with this, just to clarify, we are talking about _Jon_ trying to _surgically remove_ a _bullet_ from my _leg?!_ ”

“That’s about it, babe.”

“I was kind of counting on Georgie to come up with a better idea, honestly.”

“…I’m on board,” Melanie said.

“ _What?!_ ” Georgie and Jon exclaimed in unison.

“Well, I want the bullet removed. A surgeon won’t be able to see it to do that. Jon has spooky seeing things powers. It makes sense, in a terrible, what-has-my-life-come-to way.”

“We can’t buy a strong enough local anaesthetic in a pharmacy, but Basira has access to ones that would be effective,” Jon offered.

Georgie sighed, resigned. “I don’t have any better ideas.”

“Do we have to tell Basira?”

There was a quick burst of static over the phone that Georgie assumed was Jon forgetting that he couldn’t ask questions and asking why.

Melanie apparently came to the same conclusion, saying, “I just, I’m going to be making myself less useful. No, hear me out,” she continued when both Jon and Georgie tried to respond to that. “She basically had to rely on me during the Flesh attack. Jon’s back, but he’s frail, Martin’s still gone – _don’t_ start pining Jon – and I’m about to make myself significantly less good at fighting. I just, I just don’t want to deal with her reaction until everything’s done. I don’t want her to remind me of, of how _good_ the fighting all felt, of how _much_ I did, of how, how _afraid_ I made them, until the bullet is already gone and I can’t change my mind. Because, because I might. Change my mind. But I don’t _want_ to want that.”

“Alright,” Jon said, sounding like he knew exactly what she was talking about. He probably did. He kept turning around to see points of no return behind him that he hadn’t been aware of until then.

“I’ll tell Basira I’m trying to make a better first aid kit for Georgie,” Melanie said. “To get the local anaesthetic. Because I love you, babe, and you deserve the best. And also because I’m worried about you. These things are true. Come to think of it, can I look through your first aid kit and see if I have anything to add?”

“Sure, yeah. After the thing with the Flesh I dug out my first aid kit and added a whole bunch to it, but that was sort of at random.”

“I’ll get everything else for… god, amateur, at-home surgery. This is going to be lovely,” Jon said.

“Get a tarp,” Georgie requested.

“Of course I’m getting a tarp,” he responded.

“I’ll see you then?”

“See you then.”

“If I close my eyes for the entire time I won’t see you then,” Melanie said as Georgie ended the call.

Georgie looked around the room. “Mel, I have a question.”

“Babe?”

“How important is the tape recorder quarantine closet to you?”

Melanie looked up, presumably seeing the same pile of tape recorders on the table. “That’s not so many, they’ll fit.”

“Those are the visible ones, Mel.”

“Oh. Don’t bother. Maybe they’ll go away overnight.”

“Maybe the Admiral’ll eat them.”

“No! He deserves better quality food!”


	12. Chapter 12

Melanie had opted to visibly be working on making sure Georgie was safe for a bit before asking Basira for a local anaesthetic so it wouldn’t be so out of nowhere, so it would be a couple days before they’d find out how that would go. In the meantime, she’d invited Jon over to her flat, so they could talk and so he could have an opportunity to be slightly less stressed before literally cutting Melanie’s leg open. Honestly, even if he tried to destress 24/7 he probably wouldn’t make progress, Georgie thought to herself as he walked in.

“Have you been sleeping less? You look even more exhausted than normal.”

“Ah, yeah. I thought, with the dreams- the nightmares and all, I should… I can’t _stop_ them, but, maybe… Was it _not_ better?”

Georgie’s chest tightened a bit at the way he curled in on himself. “Honestly, I’m probably not the one to go to about that. They don’t really affect me so I tend to just forget them when I wake up. I suppose I’m not entirely in a position to say this… Actually, you know what? I am. Even if getting less sleep did help, stop doing that. Take _care_ of yourself, Jon.”

She pushed him over to the couch where the Admiral was, who promptly curled up on Jon’s lap once he was sitting.

“I will tell Mel to get you to sleep if I have to,” she said.

He looked at her, eyes wide. “You wouldn’t.”

“I absolutely would. She thinks you’re sort of tolerable now, didn’t you hear? She might be willing to interact with you if I ask.” She paused. “I might talk to her even if you _do_ agree to sleep more. You needed to be bothered into taking care of yourself while we were together and you’re in an even worse state now.”

Jon flinched at that last statement, and after a second Georgie realized what she’d reminded him of. She pulled him closer so she could wrap her arms around him.

“I didn’t… I just make things worse,” he muttered.

“That’s not true. You make the Admiral happy,” Georgie protested, knowing full well that it wouldn’t actually make the actual problem better. Making a cat happier wouldn’t get Martin to talk to him. “Mel’s getting drawn into an eldritch fear monster and you’re going to help her. You’ll help him.”

“What if I can’t, though? What if I make things _worse_ for Melanie?”

“You won’t. If you can’t trust your own skills, can you trust that I won’t let you?”

“I- ”

“Hey, you even know I wasn’t lying about that. You can’t make me tell the truth on accident, Mr. Jarchivist, and then doubt me anyways. That’s just rude.”

He paused, clearly running the prior conversation through his mind for a second before remembering the question. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. You’re a bit of a mess right now. I’m not too upset that you made a mistake. I’m serious, Jon. You’re even weaker now and I still go to the gym regularly. I bet I can stop you from doing anything bad to Melanie.”

“Thanks, Georgie.”

“Worst case scenario, I can just pick Martin up and carry him down to the Archives.”

Jon snickered faintly. “He’s a lot bigger than I am. Taller than you, even.”

“Yes, but have you considered- ” Georgie shifted the position she was holding him in so he could see her flex her arm. “Peter Lukas won’t stand a chance against _this._ ”

-

They’d been sitting together like that for a while, the Admiral purring on Jon’s lap, and Georgie had been half hoping that Jon had managed to fall asleep, when he shifted.

“Did you- sorry, if you said something I didn’t quite catch it.” he asked.

“I didn’t say anything,” she responded.

“Mm. Oh, actually- you mentioned the tape recorders manifesting, earlier. Ah- ”

“- What’s up with that?”

“Well, yes.”

“I sorta figured the tape recorders were connected to you specifically instead of all this spooky shit in general when they kept showing up to record the Admiral. I’m assuming you aren’t just straight up listening through them, though, if you aren’t aware of them.”

“No, I still- I just hear through my ears.”

“Ignoring that ominous comment, I wonder if you generally know what they recorded? It’d be hard to test and make sure it wasn’t just your spooky knowing powers. I was going to say I couldn’t see a point, but actually if you could manifest them whenever you could bother the Admiral whenever and honestly I think that would be good for your mental health.”

“Maybe later. Trying to figure things out is how I got into this mess.” He sighed, and curled more snugly up against her. She reached around and over him to pet the Admiral, who had actually fallen asleep.

-

Jon was out buying the things he could get when Basira showed up. She looked tense, but as far as Georgie could tell, that was basically her only state of being at this point.

“Is Melanie okay?” Georgie asked, fairly sure she knew what Basira wanted to talk to her about but figuring she’d best make sure Mel was okay first.

“I mean, with how things are? Not really.”

Georgie shrugged in agreement.

“She seems more worried than usual, though. Did something happen to you? I was half worried I’d get here and you’d be bleeding out or something.”

“Oh, yeah, no. I bet I know why she’s worried about me. I made… well I _tried_ to make a joke a couple of days ago. It didn’t come out as funny as I’d thought. Just ended up reminding her of my own mortality, I think.”

“Mm. Makes sense. Do you actually _want_ fancy stuff for your first aid kit? You _are_ less well defended than we are, and we’ve got more stuff in the Archives than you probably do here. Melanie’s probably right to worry about someone going after you for your connections to her and Jon. Especially with how frequently Jon gets kidnapped.”

Georgie’s sigh was only half faked. “I don’t suppose I can do what I do with Melanie and Jon and just ask anyone who comes after me to keep the spooky shit out of my flat.”

“Probably not. I’ll get you some stuff, then. How are you on self defense?”

“Pretty good. From what I’ve heard, though, being pretty good at unarmed self defense probably won’t be worth much.”

“Hm. If things get more tense, I guess we’ll figure something out. Bye.”

“Bye,” Georgie called, towards Basira’s back as she walked off.

-

“Stop crying, you baby. You need to stay in here or you’ll get stabbed or something.”

The Admiral continued crying.

“If I lock you in my bedroom and you need the bathroom what are you going to do then? Have you thought this through at all?”

The Admiral did not seem particularly inclined to think things through.

“Do you need _more_ tape recorders? If I get you more will you stop crying?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone to georgie when she started transitioning: are you sad youre not going to be as strong anymore because of the testosterone blockers  
> georgie: what are you talking about [gets stronger now that she doesnt have to skip gym days because of dysphoria]  
> georgie and jon are transfemme transmasc solidarity in that she is very tall and he is very short thank you for your time  
> basira and martin are the reverse of that because basira is short and martin is tall  
> welcome to the magnus archives everyone is trans because im trans and I say so
> 
> also i feel like this is a good time to point out that jon is definitely hunting for statements still  
> it won't come up for a bit because this is entirely georgie's pov but that's a thing that's happening


	13. Chapter 13

Georgie invited Jon over first, the day they all agreed the “surgery” would take place on. When they’d discussed it, before, Melanie had been over and Jon had been on his own somewhere, talking over the phone. Whoever came over second would be the one in the less comfortable position, walking into a room the other one was already in, and Georgie figured it would be approximately fair for Jon to be the one to not go through that after arguably having been in the less comfortable position during the previous conversation.

Besides, it meant she had him to help her coax the Admiral into calming down and staying put in the bathroom, and then to help her set up what they’d need for Mel. The downside was that Melanie would likely be somewhat on the defensive when she showed up, because of Jon’s presence.

Jon offered to go to another room when Melanie showed up – to give Melanie some space so she could have more agency regarding his presence, which Georgie figured would probably work best. It reminded her a bit of introducing cats to each other, with the phase where you keep them close to each other but in different rooms so they can get used to each other and they won’t fight when you let them actually interact.

When she mentioned this to Jon, he looked affronted… in a catlike way. She laughed at him for that, a little bit.

-

She could hear Jon pacing in the bedroom. Melanie would be here in under a minute, he’d said, so he’d give her some space. Georgie had raised an eyebrow at that, but he hadn’t noticed the incongruity between giving Mel space and keeping careful track of how far out she was. After a couple seconds, he’d caught on and apologized about using his spooky knowledge powers, and agreed that he’d stop doing that.

Not a minute later, Georgie heard a knock at the door, and went and let Mel in.

“Got you a present,” Mel said, pulling a tape recorder out of her pocket.

Georgie went to say something, but Melanie interrupted her by pulling another one out of the same pocket. And another one out of her other pocket. And another one, no, two, wait, three, out of her bag.

“Can I guess that Jon is stressed?” Melanie asked.

“Oh, he’s wearing a hole through to the flat below me in my bedroom.”

Mel snorted, sounding only a little irritated. “So, you got me a tarp to bleed out on? Doesn’t look very comfortable.”

“You’re just going to have to survive this, then, if you want to die somewhere comfortable.”

“Damn. Oy, Jon! Let’s get this over with.”

-

They did not get it over with. When Jon came out of the bedroom, they both froze up, staring at each other. Melanie looked a couple seconds from throwing a punch. Jon looked like he was attempting to fade out of existence like Martin was apparently prone to doing.

“We could put pillows. Or something. Under the tarp,” Jon stammered, before looking very much like he regretted every single word he’d ever said. “For comfort.”

Mel tensed, and Georgie thought for a second she was going to have to pull her off of him, but then she took a couple deep breaths and said, curtly, “This is fine.”

Jon nodded, slightly desperately.

“So!” Georgie said, breaking the silence with all the grace of a swan struggling to take off. “Surgery!”

They both flinched, turning away from each other. Georgie wasn’t sure Jon had blinked at all.

“Right. Yes,” Jon said.

“The surgery I am here for. My surgery,” Mel agreed.

Neither one of them moved.

Georgie looked back at them, trying to convey her disappointment with the least movement possible. After a second, Jon pivoted abruptly around and walked to stand by the tarp, staring at it with a vague look of bafflement. Melanie turned to watch him, before muttering, “oh yeah,” and moving to sit down on it. They both froze up again, apparently having run out of ideas.

“Mel, could you roll your pants up?” Georgie asked, taking pity on them.

She felt Jon stiffen even more than he had been as Melanie did so.

“Oh, damn,” he said, grimacing.

Georgie looked harder at Melanie’s leg, but it still looked normal.

“Something wrong with my leg, Jon?” Melanie asked, looking half a second from getting up going back on her promise to not try to fight him.

Georgie stepped on his foot, hard, before he could say yes and make things worse. “Her leg looks normal to us, Jon.”

“Oh,” he said, blinking at her. “It’s- it _looks_ rotten, all the way through, to me. It’s… horrible, to look at. At least it’ll be really easy for me to find the bullet, because I can already see it.”

He did not look particularly happy about this. Neither did Mel. Georgie didn’t feel particularly happy either, honestly.

“Alright, Jon. You’re the only one here who has a chance of knowing how to perform surgery.”

“Oh! Right!” He grabbed something from the ground next to him without looking.

Melanie flinched back.

“Jon, I think this would be far easier if you could explain what you were going to do,” Georgie said, trying to remind him that startling Mel was generally a bad idea and that in these circumstances, it was probably an even worse one.

He seemed to get the message, gesturing vaguely with the syringe. “Anaesthetic. For your leg? Ah, I was going to inject it here,” he pointed, but didn’t seem inclined to go very close to Mel, so it was hard to tell where he was pointing besides ‘leg, generally’.

Melanie gritted her teeth and nodded.

-

The surgery continued in much the same manner, with Georgie occasionally nudging Jon to remind him to tell them what he was doing, although she had to be more careful about when she nudged him once he was holding sharp objects near Mel’s leg.

Part way through, though, with her leg cut open but the bullet still in, Mel told Jon to stop for a second. Georgie felt inclined to argue, and Jon looked like he felt the same, but they both saw how tense she looked and decided not to.

She took a few deep breaths and then shook her head, seemingly deciding against something. “Georgie,” she asked, her voice carefully flat. “Could you hold me down?”

“Alright,” Georgie responded.

Melanie struggled, when Jon actually went to remove the bullet. Georgie ended up lying across her, using her upper body to keep Mel’s arms against the ground and pressing Mel’s leg into the ground with her feet. She still had a leg free, but Georgie figured it’d be best to hold the leg that Jon was doing literal surgery on as still as she could.

When Georgie would think about it later – when she wasn’t distracted trying to keep Melanie from physically attacking Jon – she would think that Melanie could have definitely struggled harder. In all likelihoods, Georgie would still have succeeded at holding her down, even if she was trying her hardest, but Mel might have been able to escape, and either way, it would have made Jon’s job significantly harder.

Melanie passed out immediately as Jon removed the bullet, and Georgie got up to help Jon clean. His hands were steadier than she’d ever seen them as he stitched Mel’s leg back together, but the second he was free of that duty he sat back, shaking, and Georgie decided that actually, he wouldn’t be doing any cleaning. He would be getting rest. They would all talk later.


	14. Chapter 14

Melanie woke with a groan, and Georgie grabbed her a cup of coffee and moved to sit next to her where she had been laid on the couch.

“You feeling okay?”

“Mmgh. Leg hurts.”

“Want me to grab some painkillers?”

“Stay.”

“Want Jon to grab some painkillers?”

Mel paused, thinking. “Yes. Coffee?”

“Here,” Georgie said, passing her the cup. “Hey Jon, can you grab Mel some painkillers?”

“Alright,” he called back, and she heard her bed squeak as he presumably put together the self control to drag himself up and off it.

-

“You’re tolerable,” Melanie declares, breaking the silence.

“I- thanks?” Jon responds.

“I just thought you should know, because I didn’t think you were tolerable before now.”

“It was fair that you didn’t- ”

“It was at least partly the Slaughter,” Melanie responded, raising an eyebrow.

“Are you feeling better, now?” Georgie asked.

Melanie stroked the Admiral absently while she thought. “I think I might be. I’ll wait and see.”

-

“What’s something I’m pissed about?” Mel asked while they were trying to put together something for lunch. Well, Jon and Georgie were trying to put together something for lunch. Melanie was sitting down on the couch because her leg had a hole in it, with the Admiral curled up in her lap. It turned out he liked her a lot more without the Slaughter bullet.

“Me?” Jon offered.

“Not specific enough.” Mel dismissed it. “Besides, I meant before the Slaughter.”

“Jackson Baker,” Georgie said.

Melanie sat bolt upright, jolting the Admiral, who meowed in displeasure but did not get up. “I can’t _believe_ I forgot about him! _Fuck_ that bastard!”

Jon raised an eyebrow in obvious curiosity. Georgie sighed, having already heard it many times before.

“Well, _first_ off, the bastard plagiarized my _video-_ ”

-

“Melanie didn’t need the Slaughter,” Georgie said, more to herself than Jon.

“I didn’t need the Eye,” he responded, hushed. “We’re too late for me, though.”

“Jon.”

“Not… not too late in general. But too late to remove my connection to the Eye like that, even if there was some physical… _thing,_ we could remove. I wouldn’t be free. I would just be dead.”

Georgie nodded. “That’s no solution, then. That’s fine. I wasn’t expecting an easy solution.”

“It’s not fine,” Jon countered. “and you _were_ hoping for one.”

“Fine. I’m upset that you have to remain so trapped by all of this, and that there’s nothing either you or I can do to just outright remove you. I’m frustrated. But, Jon? I’m not frustrated with _you._ It isn’t your fault that the solution doesn’t exist, and I maintain that this situation is barely your fault in the first place. Certainly not enough your fault that you should be blamed. Is that specific enough for you?”

He blinked at her, taken aback. “I- yes. Thank you, Georgie.”

-

The Admiral trying to get Melanie’s attention was the first sign of her state that really caught Georgie’s attention. All of them had known that straight up cutting a spooky bullet out of Mel’s leg would have some sort of negative consequence, but no one had known what recovering from the Slaughter would actually be like, in practice.

Jon had mentioned post surgical depression – even if the person wanted the surgery, it could still register as a traumatic injury to their body, at least so far as what would be involved in recovery. Georgie’s only relevant experience had been her own, but that was losing an entire emotion instead of having how she felt that emotion change somewhat.

Melanie had wondered if she’d end up reacting with more anger than necessary, just to prove to herself that she could still be angry. Georgie was privately fairly sure that Mel had been correct, though there was no way she was going to say that out loud. Unless Mel herself said something about that, or unless it became a serious problem the way the Slaughter had been becoming, Georgie was not going to treat Melanie’s emotions as anything less that completely true and valid.

The Admiral’s failure to get any scritches from Mel, though, wasn’t connected to any sort of anger. It spoke more to what Jon and Georgie had thought of as possible.

Georgie frowned, thinking over the sense she had that Mel was exaggerating _all_ of her emotions – not just the dislike of Jon. Mel reminded her of how she’d been, shortly after, well. The corpse. Not so much unhappy, as empty and numb.

An hour or so after they’d had lunch, Georgie had found herself curled up with the Admiral, trying to write up a list of things she could remember Jon doing when they’d been together that had helped. He’d been good at making her feel more like a person that existed. Even when he hadn’t been able to get her to smile, he’d been good at making life feel more doable. Her memory of that period wasn’t great, but she remembered feeling like she had to make herself into people that she wasn’t frequently, and not feeling like that around Jon. He hadn’t made her feel judged when she couldn’t bring herself to smile even at things that should have made basically anyone happy, and it had been a relief to stop acting. He hadn’t made things seem like there was a correct answer that obviously people would choose. She’d been honest to how she’d felt – or not felt – and he’d never made it seem like those choices were any less.

She could try to do the same for Melanie, even if she’d never been so good at accepting when ‘not as awful as it might have been’ was the best possible outcome.

-

Georgie wanted to keep Melanie with her, to hold her and comfort her and protect her from her pain, but the shitty reality of the situation was that spending time outside the very situation that was hurting her would hurt her anyways. Mel and Jon were aware of this. They’d been the ones to point it out to Georgie – that Melanie would have to go _to_ the Archives to recover. Even though the Archives would make it harder for her to recover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> concept: georgie post spooky corpse encounter basically had post surgical depression on top of ptsd because she got something (her sense of fear) removed in a way that probably counted as trauma to her body  
> I am not explaining this well at all dont pay attention to me


	15. Chapter 15

Georgie frowned at the sound of a knock on her door. She didn’t remember plans for anyone to come over, and Jon and Mel would warn her if they were going to show up unexpectedly. Was something wrong? Actually, was this even Jon or Melanie? As much as she tried to only interact minimally with the spooky dangers that came with knowing them, her relationships with them did still put her in danger. She needed to remember to be cautious.

Then again, if whoever it was intended to attack her, they probably had the ability to get past her door. It would probably make the most sense to at least check through the peephole.

It was… Basira? At least, Georgie assumed it was Basira. The person looked like how Melanie had described Basira, at least. Georgie opened the door.

“Basira?”

“Yes,” Basira responded. “Can I come in?”

“I’ve got a bit of time, but then I need to get back to work. I was taking a break when you knocked, actually.”

“Great.”

Basira followed Georgie to the couch, taking no time to glance around Georgie’s flat. It was nice of her, even though Georgie suspected it was less out of a respect for her privacy and more because Basira didn’t think it was important at the moment. This was confirmed when Basira noticed the tape recorder on the coffee table and immediately abandoned all respect for Georgie’s privacy to look around.

“They just turn up, sometimes,” Georgie said, gesturing somewhat redundantly at the tape recorder. Basira looked at her, confused, so she elaborated. “I think they turn up when Jon is worried about me, mostly.”

Another tape recorder appeared next to the first one.

“He worries a lot,” Georgie added.

Basira stared at the new tape recorder for a second, then shook her head slightly. “I wanted to talk about Melanie.”

“Why? If you’re just here hoping I’ll tell you something because Mel didn’t, I won’t waste your time. I’m not going behind her back like that.”

“No, she told me. In the future, though, I’d _like_ to be kept in the loop when it comes to things involving the safety of the Archives.”

“Frankly, I’m not the one to go to about this, Basira. Again, if you want to talk to Melanie or Jon about something, you should talk to them instead of talking to me.”

Basira frowned, but didn’t argue. She honestly looked like she was getting about the same quality of sleep as Jon was, which was really saying something, considering how Mel still had to argue him into getting anything _resembling_ enough sleep on an almost daily basis.

“You can’t deny that you’re involved in all of this, though,” Basira said.

Georgie sighed. “I know, but I am trying to stay as far out of it as I can.”

“Not much you can do if they just turn up at your door.”

“I did check through the peephole first, thank you,” Georgie responded, feeling a bit like she was being scolded for something she hadn’t even done.

“I know you’re careful, it’s just…”

“You’re worried that’s not enough? Did something happen?”

“A monster showed up in the Institute – it didn’t do much, and then Jon scared it off, but it wouldn’t have been so simple if they’d come here instead. You should- ”

“I’m not moving into the Archives.” Georgie shook her head. “I would go absolutely insane trapped there, and Jon and Melanie need somewhere they can go that isn’t the Archives.”

“You can’t just _ignore_ all of this and expect it to go away,” Basira snapped. “The Archives have enemies, and like it or not, you’re involved with us! You can’t just, just make yourself and everyone else _less safe_ like it’s _nothing!_ ”

“Is this about _Mel?_ It was her choice!”

“It’s not just her life at stake here! It’s not even just the two of you! There’s a whole staff of people in the Institute who aren’t equipped to protect themselves at _all!_ In the Flesh attack, they would have all _died_ otherwise! Some of them can quit, sure, but some of them can’t _afford_ to, and even if they _do,_ what if something gets out of the Institute? Yes, I’m glad that Melanie is recovering, but I can’t afford to forget the larger picture and even _with_ her we were so outclassed. I can’t keep you safe if you’re all the way out here.”

“I know it’s a risk, Basira, but it’s my risk to take. If it goes wrong, the responsibility falls to me, not you. You might be the de facto leader of the Archives, but you aren’t actually in charge of me.”

“It’s _way_ more of a risk than you’re making it out to be. This won’t affect just you, Georgie. Even if Melanie isn’t over at the time, they can still use you against her and the Archives.”

“I’m _aware,_ Basira. I’m not moving to the Archives. I do intend to take more precautions here, though – for myself _and_ for Jon and Mel when they visit. Do you have any suggestions?”

Basira stared at her for a second, clearly trying to decide if pushing the issue was worth it, and then nodded. “What do you know for self-defense?”

-

Georgie was fairly confident she and Basira were committing several crimes. She knew for a fact she didn’t have any sort of permit for any firearm, and whatever permits Basira had, she didn’t think they extended to anyone other than Basira. Also, there were probably at least a couple crimes involved in their presence in the forest where Basira was teaching Georgie to aim – Georgie was pretty sure she’d seen at least a few no trespassing signs on their way.

She’d expected Basira to hand her a knife or something when Basira had asked about self-defense, but then again, Melanie’s success with a knife had probably been at least partly because of the Slaughter. Maybe the choice of weapon shouldn’t be so surprising when the dangers were spooky eldritch monsters that kill people.

Before they left, they hashed out more days for practice, and Basira reminded Georgie to tell the police that she was connected to the Institute if they tried to arrest her for the gun, because they’d probably drop it to avoid getting sectioned.

She didn’t know what to do with it, so she just put it in a drawer by the door. That was… probably safe enough. Hopefully. She didn’t have kids, and the Admiral probably wouldn’t get it there. Georgie decided to procrastinate her work some more by researching gun safety. Basira’s instructions had been… vague.

“You’re a grown up adult. Don’t point it at things you aren’t going to shoot and don’t be dumb,” Basira had said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> basira is going through it rip  
> anyways GEORGIE HAS A GUN NOW FUCK YEAH


	16. Chapter 16

The man currently known as Elias Bouchard was irritated. More irritated than usual, that is – the conditions of his cell could only be improved so much, no matter what information he could leverage, and the chill was a constant discomfort. That was expected, though. What wasn’t expected, and what he’d rather expected the opposite of, was Georgina Barker’s interference. He didn’t think she’d be much of an obstacle towards Jonathan’s marks, but she could slow his development. She likely _would_ slow his development – Jonathan cared too much for her opinion, and she had… an unfortunately level view of the situation. He would look into his options for what to do with her. It might be easier to do nothing, in the end, but it wouldn’t hurt to consider his options.

-

 **babe <3:** so you know how we’re having a movie night tonight

 **u:** yeah? did something come up

 **babe <3:** no i was just wondering

 **babe <3:** is this a romantic thing or nah

 **u:** wasnt planning on it why

 **babe <3:** i was thinking bout forcing jon to watch movie with us?

 **u:** ??

 **babe <3:** hes just seemed off for a bit

 **babe <3:** like worse than he normally is

 **babe <3:** which is already a low bar

 **u:** awww you care about him

 **babe <3:** i do not

 **babe <3:** hes terrible why would i care about him

 **babe <3:** you care about him i dont want him to make you sad

 **babe <3:** that does not mean i care about him

 **u:** k babe whatever you say

 **u:** do you want me to invite him so you can keep pretending you arent worried about him

 **babe <3:** you should invite him because youre the one whos actually worried about him

 **babe <3:** >:(

 **u:** <3

-

Melanie showed up about half an hour before Georgie had told Jon to, grinning brightly.

“I brought Velocipastor! All I’ll tell you about this movie is that it was made on a budget of $35,000 and I’m pretty sure $34,900 of that was spent on crack for the writers. It’s _so good._ ”

“I assume we’re not telling Jon that?”

“Oh, absolutely not. He’ll probably Know it, but hopefully by then it’ll be too late.”

Georgie snorted. She hadn’t actually forgotten the original plan they’d had, which had been to watch a mystery movie Mel had missed in theaters and had been looking forward to for a while. It was actually the reason she hadn’t invited Jon in the first place – he’d admitted that he’d developed a dislike of mystery stories because he kept Knowing the solution on accident too early, and she’d figured he wouldn’t enjoy the movie. She wondered if he’d said the same thing to Melanie, or if Mel had just guessed that spooky knowledge powers wouldn’t match up well with a mystery. Either way, she was happy to see the consideration.

“We can watch the other movie tomorrow, if you want?”

“Oh! Yeah, sure. I know we were going to watch it today, but I wanted to take the opportunity to force Jon to watch this piece of high quality art.” Melanie looked a bit desperate to avoid acknowledging that the change had been for Jon’s benefit, and not just to make him watch a low budget funny movie, so Georgie decided not to push it.

“Well, _I’m_ certainly excited for it,” Georgie said, grinning.

-

Jon looked suspicious at Melanie’s grin when he got there, and glanced at Georgie, so she shook her head and grinned to tell him it was nothing too horrible. He just turned his suspicious look to her, but he didn’t look scared or cornered. If he had, Georgie would have explained what was going on – that wouldn’t be worth the surprise – but she figured he trusted them that it wouldn’t be anything really bad, which she was grateful for. It was nice that he was trusting Mel a bit, even if he did have to check with Georgie. He still didn’t really look _calm,_ but Melanie never really looked calm either, and that was just the sad reality of their lives. This was probably the best she was going to get.

Georgie kept an eye on Jon while Melanie went and got popcorn ready. The Admiral – the traitor – had jumped from her lap over to Jon’s the second he’d sat down and was getting scritches, but Jon’s smile was barely there – more sad than happy, and Georgie could see what Melanie was worried about. She had to admit she’d been at least sort of hoping that whatever was going on with Jon was something the Admiral would be able to fix.

“It’s time~” Melanie sang, bringing the popcorn over to where they were sitting and squeezing in on Jon’s other side between him and an armrest.

Jon jumped slightly at this, and the Admiral shifted slightly to accommodate the movement without getting off his lap. Melanie patted at her lap, but the Admiral didn’t budge. She frowned at him. Looking away from Mel for a second, Georgie noticed a small smile on Jon’s face. It wasn’t much, but it was there. Mel fished some treats out of a pocket and started trying to bribe the Admiral to come to her, but he still didn’t move.

“I think he knows who his favorite is, Mel,” Georgie pointed out, trying not to laugh at Melanie’s frown.

“Just start the movie already,” Mel grumbled.

-

Jon snorted under his breath at what the movie did in place of a burning car, which Georgie barely heard over her own laughter. She was looking forward to the rest of the movie.

-

Jon’s smile looked less sad by the end, and Melanie was crying with laughter. The Admiral had left to do whatever important cat business he had somewhere in the middle of the movie, but came back as Georgie let the credits roll. Jon had used to get irritated when she’d not let the “entire movie” play, and it had become a habit somewhere along the way.

“Oh! That reminds me! I have a gun now, guys!”

Melanie stopped in the middle of describing last fight of the movie to the Admiral, and turned to Georgie with a downright worrying grin upon her face.

“Really?!”

“Yeah, it’s in the drawer over there. Basira gave it to me.”

“Babe… that’s kinda hot,” Melanie replied, still grinning.

Jon made eye contact with Georgie, looking baffled and mildly concerned. Georgie snorted.

“It’s an allo thing, not a Slaughter thing, Jon. Don’t worry.”

“Every time I hear something about sexual attraction, it just sounds more fake,” he grumbled. Melanie burst back into the laughter she’d barely stopped since the end of the movie.

-

They’d ordered dinner after that, and Georgie and Melanie had kept the conversation afloat enough that it wasn’t too terribly awkward, but it had been rapidly obvious that whatever good mood Jon had gotten from the movie was wearing off and he was retreating back into what Georgie called the Metaphorical Sadness Corner and what Melanie called the Depressed Lump Mode. Either way, it was obvious that something was really getting to him, and Georgie was getting very concerned for him. Georgie wasn’t sure how to approach the topic, but she was saved by Mel’s bluntness.

“Okay, Jon. What world-ending apocalypse is happening now?”

“Wh- Isn’t that- That’s redundant,” he responded. Georgie put her face in her hands.

What concern had been visible on Melanie’s face was entirely replaced with indignation. “Well, _excuse me_ for my _subpar_ choice of words, Jon. You look even more of a mess than usual, did Martin break up with you?”

“He can’t break up with me. We were never dating.” Somehow, Jon managed to look even worse. Mel winced.

“Still not what I meant. Uh- ” she looked to Georgie for help.

“Jon, did something happen? Mel’s right, you look even worse off than you normally do.”

He curled in on himself a bit, the way Georgie knew he tended to do when he thought she’d disapprove of something – when he’d have stayed awake the entire night, or forgotten to eat all day, or just when she’d caught him having a bad mental health day and thought admitting to it and asking for help would make him a burden. Used to be he’d refuse to look at her, too, but now he was gazing back, barely blinking. She wasn’t sure if that was the sort of change that happened normally over time or something tangentially spooky, but it didn’t seem like there was any reason to point it out, so she didn’t. It did mean she couldn’t frown to herself, though, because he tended to misinterpret that as a negative sign and not just concern.

Georgie paused to think. Basira had mentioned monsters showing up at the Institute when she’d been over, hadn’t she? It could be to do with that, and if it wasn’t, denying it would at least get Jon to start talking, and it’d be easier to get him to keep talking and tell her what it was then.

“Basira said something about some monsters or something showing up at the Institute – is it about that? Are you worried? If that’s the case, you gotta communicate, Jon. It’s the only solution.”

“The _only_ solution?” he mumbled, but his voice sounded a bit lighter.

“Unfortunately,” Georgie replied.

He sighed. “Well, if _that’s the case..._ ”

She stared at him expectantly.

“That’s part of it, I guess. I don’t know how much a gun will even _do_ against some of the… monsters- ”

“If you’re including yourself in that group, go back and say people.”

Melanie snorted at the affronted look on Jon’s face.

“W- _they_ really aren’t all people, though,” he tried. It did not escape Georgie’s notice that he’d almost said we, nor that he hadn’t tried to argue he hadn’t included himself in the first place.

“Try again,” she said.

“It’s not _accurate_ though- ”

“I don’t care. Don’t talk about yourself that way.” She didn’t look away from Jon but she could hear Mel’s muffled laughter from where she sat on Jon’s other side.

“Fine. I’m not sure _how much a gun will help you,_ and I’m concerned about that.”

Georgie narrowed her eyes at him, and he glared back stubbornly. He had _technically_ done what she’d asked, after all. She decided to let it slide.

“Fair enough. I’m still not moving into the Archives, but we could talk about other precautions I could take later? Now, you said that was part of it. What’s the other part?”

For the first time in the conversation, Jon looked away. Georgie chose to take that as a bad sign.

“Breekon said that Daisy is still alive.”

“The cop? Didn’t she kidnap you or something?” Mel interruped.

He flinched, his hand moving up to cover his throat. “Yeah…”

“Are you worried about her coming back?” Georgie tried. She remembered Daisy. Daisy had almost shot him, after shooting someone else in front of him. Made sense that he wouldn’t want to remember that. He’d sounded terrified.

“No- she’s… she’s in the coffin.”

Georgie’s brain stopped working for a second. “What.”

“It leads to, like, the claustrophobia dimension,” Melanie said, over Jon saying something that sounded like the same explanation but more complicated.

“So the police brutality woman is in the claustrophobia dimension. This is… bad?”

“The Buried. And… I don’t know.”

A suspicion was developing in the back of Georgie’s mind. She tried what she thought the more reasonable option was first. “Is it that she’s close by now, even if she can’t physically threaten you?”

“...Maybe a bit?” He shook his head, and Georgie sighed internally as the suspicion solidified. “I don’t… I don’t want to just leave her there.”

“Why _not?_ ” Melanie asked, incredulous.

“Jon,” Georgie added, already fairly certain of why not.

“When she… that was the most helpless I’ve ever felt. I don’t… I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, but… she’s trapped. I just… I don’t…”

“Jonathan Sims.”

He waved his hands vaguely. “I can’t…”

“How would you get her out?” Georgie raised an eyebrow.

He winced. It was fairy obvious he didn’t have a plan, but Georgie had pretty much figured that out already. She crossed her arms.

“He doesn’t have a plan, does he?” Melanie asked.

“No, he does not,” Georgie responded. “Jon, there isn’t anything you can really do about this. You shouldn’t blame yourself for things that aren’t even your fault. I know it sucks, but Jon, you can’t just keep taking on more problems. If we happen on a way to get her out, then sure, but as things stand, no one can blame you for not doing anything when there’s nothing you can do. Okay?”

“…Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what georgie took away from the conversation: jon will think things through and try not to do anything dumb  
> what jon took away from the conversation: you are free to throw yourself into the buried as long as you have something that could be considered a plan


	17. Chapter 17

**babe <3:** hey georgie are you busy

 **babe <3:** actually guess what if you were busy you arent now

 **babe <3:** im bringing jon over we need to talk

Those were the messages Georgie saw when she checked her phone after finishing a recording. Going by the time they’d been sent, Georgie figured Mel and Jon would be over within a couple minutes. Jon had done something stupid. Jon had done something _monumentally_ stupid, even, because Georgie didn’t even have any missed calls – Melanie wanted to talk about it in person from the start.

She sighed, and put her face in her hands. It had seemed to her like Jon had gotten the point during their conversation about the coffin – because Georgie was fairly certain that’s what this was about – and yet, all signs pointed to him having missed it entirely. Perhaps she’d been overly optimistic, she thought, remembering how much of a mess Jon had always been, and how much more of a mess he’d been lately. He had her and he had Melanie, even if Melanie wouldn’t admit to it, but… they were up against all the shit his nightmare of a job had gotten him to internalize, and there was still Basira and _her_ perspective to contend with.

At some point when she’d been lost in thought, the Admiral had climbed up onto her lap and started purring. She felt herself relax, slightly, and scratched behind his ears absentmindedly.

The door opened with a bang.

“Jon was trying to _cut his finger off!!_ ” Mel called, the anger in her voice not covering her concern and fear.

Quieter, she heard Jon ask Melanie, “Do you have to shout? Everyone can hear you out here.”

Georgie ignored his point about being loud in a flat with the door open and shouted back, “ _Jon?!_ What the _fuck?!_ ”

Loud, stumbling footsteps accompanied Mel trying to pull Jon into Georgie’s flat at a run while Jon tried to shut the door quietly. Neither succeeded – the door shut with a bang as Mel pulled too hard, yanking Jon off balance. They both fell over, and were still sitting on the floor by the front door when Georgie gently and lovingly shoved the Admiral off of her lap and went out to meet them. Under other circumstances, she would have laughed at them, but under _these_ circumstances… She looked at the two of them for a second before frowning, turning around, and walking out of the room. Fortunately, the Admiral hadn’t gotten too far, so Jon wouldn’t have time to invent too many disaster scenarios for why she’d walked off so abruptly. She scooped him up, went back out to where Jon and Melanie were still sitting, slightly dazed, and dropped him onto Jon’s lap. The Admiral promptly curled up and started purring. She knew she could count on him.

“Okay,” Georgie said flatly, looking at Jon. “Start talking.”

Jon paused, stroking the Admiral hesitantly, before taking a breath. “I think I have a plan to get Daisy out of the Buried.”

“And you have one finger too many for it to work?” she guessed sarcastically, getting a small snort from Mel.

“No, it’s just…” he waved his hands slightly, trying to put together the words he wanted. “I’ve looked at other statements, where people escape the entities, and, I think the way it works is that they have some sort of… anchor. Something to connect them to outside the entity, so they can find their way out. I was thinking, and… I thought a body part would work. Like, it’s physically part of me, that should make a pretty good anchor. At least, I think so. But I can’t even get the finger _off!_ I just- ” He sighed. “I just don’t know what else to do. If Jared Hopworth were around I could try to get him to just, take out a rib or something, I guess.”

Georgie shot Melanie a look before she could say anything. Telling Jon about the meat man would just make things worse at this point. _Maybe_ they would tell him, _if_ he convinced them that it was a good idea, and honestly, Georgie didn’t think he had much of a chance at that.

“Jon,” she started. “Just to get something clear. Are you doing your whole ‘I’m a failure and a disaster and everything is my fault’ emotional spiral over not succeeding at _cutting your own finger off?!_ ”

He looked up at her guiltily.

“Not to interrupt or anything,” Melanie said, interrupting, “but can we move? My legs hurt.”

-

“Okay,” Georgie began, once they were all sat on the couch. The Admiral followed them over and jumped up onto Jon’s lap with minimal complaining from Mel – she clearly agreed that Jon needed him the most. “Jon. Why do you want to do this.”

Jon toyed with the Admiral’s ear as he avoided her gaze. She already knew she wasn’t going to like what he was going to say, in fact, she already had a decent idea of _what_ he was going to say, but she needed him to say it anyways.

“It’s just… I just…” he sighed. Melanie poked him in the side. “I don’t…”

Mel poked him in the side again as he trailed off again, and he turned to glare at her, but without much heat. “Would you _stop?_ ”

She paused as if considering, but Georgie knew it was a show. “Hmm… no, I don’t think I will.”

Jon turned to look to Georgie for help.

“I think she’ll stop poking you if you start talking,” Georgie responded unsympathetically.

He sighed, again. “It’s just that… at least this way, I’d be able to actually _help_ someone.”

“You helped me,” Melanie said, poking him again. The Admiral was being remarkably patient with Jon’s fidgeting, Georgie noticed. Usually he hated when Jon got distracted and started fiddling with his ears and such. “Anyways,” she continued, “I don’t think cutting your finger off is the best way to feel like you have control over your life. Consider, instead, stabbing your boss.”

“He’s in jail,” Jon responded. “Also, that would kill all of us.”

“We don’t know it would- ”

“We don’t know it _wouldn’t,_ and I’m not taking that risk.”

“Melanie, stop distracting him,” Georgie said, interrupting before they could start arguing again. “Jon, please do not throw yourself into an eldritch fear dimension in order to feel more in control of your life.”

“I can’t just _leave_ her there!”

“You can’t just sacrifice yourself, either,” Georgie replied, mildly irritated.

“At least _then_ I’d be _useful!_ ”

Georgie froze, trying to think of something to say, but before she’d thought of anything, Melanie had grabbed Jon by the shoulders and pulled him to face her directly. “Jon, listen to me. You absolute dumbass. You complete and entire idiot. You free-range, organic moron. _You don’t need to earn the right to exist._ If anyone says otherwise, I will _stab them._ Hell, Georgie has a gun now! Maybe I can convince her to shoot them. Either way, don’t be _fucking stupid._ Do you hear me?”

“Oh,” Jon breathed weakly, looking like a deer in the headlights.

“That wasn’t a yes or a no,” Mel said.

“I…” He didn’t pull away from where she’d grabbed him, but he leaned back slightly to look away.

“Jon,” Georgie said, having figured out what she wanted to say. “Say it. Look one of us in the eyes and say that you deserve to exist. Say it, Jon.”

He hunched in on himself more, looking for all the world as if he were trying to disappear. Georgie’s chest hurt just looking at him. Melanie looked like she wanted to say something else, but Georgie shook her head slightly. Jon needed room to think, and he wouldn’t have it if they kept talking at them.

A couple minutes later, he shook himself out of whatever train of thought he’d been lost in, and said, shakily, “I don’t think I can do that.”

“I’m not saying we’re not going to try to rescue Daisy,” Georgie replied gently. “But we’re certainly not doing that until you can show yourself at _least_ the amount of care you’re showing for her. Okay? You can agree or I can get Mel to stalk you at work to make sure you don’t.”

Jon looked at her, and she realized he was halfway to tears. “…Okay. Okay, I can try.”

Georgie clapped her hands as the Admiral finally decided that he’d had enough of their drama and hopped off of Jon’s lap. “Okay! You’re both staying here tonight. Please think about what we talked about, Jon. You don’t have to pay a toll to exist, and you don’t owe the world your service.”

Something flickered over his face at her words, but Georgie opted not to poke at it. He looked too worn out to have another emotional conversation about whatever else it was troubling him. If it was critical, she trusted him to bring it up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> melanie: [kicks down door]  
> melanie: JON was trying to CUT HIS FINGER OFF  
> georgie: jON WHAT THE FUCK

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment i live by reading comments kinda like how jon lives by reading statements except my life is significantly less traumatic and i get to try to make people happy to live


End file.
